The State Board of Education has released Arizona’s school letter grades for the 2022-2023 school year.
Those are determined by a number of factors, including statewide assessment scores, chronic absenteeism rates, English language learner improvement, special education inclusion, high school graduation rates and college and career readiness.
Arizona School Board Association Director of Governmental Relations Chris Kotterman said schools finally seem to be recovering from pandemic learning loss.
“We had a large dip in testing scores coming out of COVID and schools have been working really hard to improve those over the last couple years," Kotterman said.
This year, more schools moved up in their letter grades than moved down. There are 97 more A schools in 2023, 40 fewer B schools, eight fewer C schools, seven more D schools and nine fewer F schools.
"So overall I'd still say the trend is positive," Kotterman said. "Some of that is just students catching up after being in school again full time and having uninterrupted learning."
High school graduation rates are also ticking upward and schools are reporting more success with English language learners. A change in the type of test students are taking could also be contributing to improved scores, but it’s too soon to tell.
