Arizona has a critical teacher shortage. Getting a failing school grade could make it worse

Arizona’s newest round of school letter grades are out.

The good news: Most Arizona schools — 78% — received an A or a B. About 18% earned a C grade, 44 schools got a D, and 13 schools received an F grade. That’s up from five failing schools the year prior.

Assigning one letter grade to an entire school is tricky business. But do they lead to bigger divides between “good” schools and "bad" schools? And who gets stuck in those?

Well, Rebecca Beebe said they can best be used by parents as a starting point, and for failing schools as guideposts for improvement.

Beebe is the director of governmental affairs for the Arizona School Administrators Association. She joined The Show for a Deep Dive, saying these grades are actually required by law.

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Full conversation

REBECCA BEEBE: So this is actually a federal requirement. The federal government requires that every state adopt an accountability system. And the purpose of those accountability systems are to show the public how a school is performing. And so this is a state law that's based on a federal law. Some other states instead do like a report card system where you can see multiple factors about a school, and each factor is given a number of stars or a letter grade.

But in Arizona, our state law that we've had for many years does require that every single public school get one single summative letter grade.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so one letter grade to represent an entire school. There are obviously people who will take issue with that. But let's back up first, just talk about what factors go into that letter grade. Like, how do you come to that conclusion?

BEEBE: Yeah, so it's difficult, right, because schools are diverse across the state. We have rural schools. We have small schools. We have really, really large schools. The letter grades come from the Department of Education, and they're based on a formula. And some of the components of that formula are things like test scores, college and career readiness indicators at the high school level, and other acceleration indicators at the elementary level.

But a big chunk of the formula for both elementary school grades and high school letter grade is test scores, standardized test scores. So parents and listeners, you may remember just this past spring, if you have a child in a public school, they took the AASA if they're in elementary school, or they took the ACT if they're in high school.

You know, a couple years ago, it was called AZMERIT. When I was in school, it was called the AIMS test.

GILGER: I remember AIMS. This is all the same thing. OK.

BEEBE: So I think this is really important context, that the federal government requires every state to give the same test to every student in the state.

GILGER: Yeah.

BEEBE: And so every state doesn't give the same test, but if you live in a state, every student in that state is taking the same test so that we can compare. And those test scores make up a lot of the letter grade, both the proficiency, so if kids are scoring proficient. But we also include growth in our letter grade system.

We want to recognize as a state, when a kid comes to a school lower in their proficiency or maybe not proficient, maybe they don't make it too proficient that year, but they grow quite a bit.

GILGER: So growth matters.

BEEBE: Growth matters a lot. I mean, your kid is showing up in third grade in April on that one day, being tested on everything they learned that year. Some kids do really well on tests, some don't. Some kids show up that day hungry, some kids show up that day tired. And we know the research shows that proficiency scores are often tied to.

They're not imperfect, but they're not perfect either. They're often tied to the socioeconomic status of the family.

GILGER: Yeah. OK. So growth. Lots of other factors go into this, but it's still one grade in the end. I wonder how you think we should use that one grade, right? Like, as a parent, if you're looking at a school and saying, should I send my kid to this school, or should I send my kid to a school with a much better letter grade?

BEEBE: So I think letter grades for parents are a good starting point because these letter grades are based on several factors. And so maybe you take that letter grade, you see that your school has a C letter grade. Well, first of all, I would say a C is performing your average performance. So C isn't failing, right. But maybe you see that C and you wonder, OK, is this the right school for my kid?

GILGER: Yeah.

BEEBE: I would suggest you dive a little deeper into what makes up that C. As I mentioned, there's parts of the formula that are based on test scores, but there's other parts of the formula based on acceleration indicators, like how many 8th graders are taking algebra instead of waiting till high school? What's the chronic absentee rate?

So you can take that letter grade as a starting point. Go to the Arizona Department of Education website and look up the report card for your child's school or for the school you're looking at. That report card is going to have test scores breaking down by subgroup.

How are English language learners doing? How are students with disabilities doing? How are African American students doing? Hispanic, Latino students, Indigenous students? You know, you can go to that report card website and see the experience level of the teachers. Are they certified? Are they not certified? What's the percentage of certified teachers?

But certainly there's just so much more context to a school district than their letter grades and so much you may be missing out on knowing about a specific school without doing a little further deep dive into what that school has to offer.

What's the culture of the school? How long have the teachers been there? What do your neighbors think? You know, where do your neighbors go to school, and what do they think of the school? There's just so much that we're missing out by just looking at the letter grade.

GILGER: The letter grade only tells you so much. So I mean, does this, paired with the fact that we have open enrollment and you can send your kid to any district and whatever school is performing really well in these grades, does this kind of system require it as it is, lead to contribute to segregation, you think?

BEEBE: I think the way — that's a deep question. Yeah, I think the way that I would answer that is to come back to this idea of, if you are a parent, do you believe that your child's worth is based on, you know, their score on a high stakes test at the end of the year?

There's so much more to a school than those test scores. And I think we try really hard to create an accountability system that doesn't just reflect the socioeconomic status of the school. Proficiency especially is just so often tied to economic status.

GILGER: So if you're looking at letter grades based mostly on test scores, do you end up with, you know, low-scoring schools in low economic areas?

BEEBE: Well, when I look at the list of the F schools, yeah, they have a couple commonalities. They're low socioeconomic status and/or rural. So as much as we try, and I think we do try very hard to include other things in our formula, like these acceleration indicators and college and career readiness indicators.

You know, how many of your kids are going on to post secondary, you can get bonus points for post secondary enrollment and military enrollment. You can get bonus points if you have a high special ed rate. You can get bonus points and points for kids earning industry, earning credentials and CTE programs. So we try really hard to make up for, to have a system that's not just based on test scores.

But I do think it's important for people to understand, you know, social determinants can influence someone's ability to be ready for school.

GILGER: Yeah. And Rebecca, let me ask you about the impact on a school of getting this kind of letter grade, right. Like if you're a teacher or an administrator or a coach or something at a school, working every day to try to educate these kids. And, you know, you get an F, what's that like? What does that do to the school culture?

BEEBE: Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad you asked that, because it really can bring morale down in a school. You know, we talk about schools in a broad way, but we forget that there's hundreds of little souls in that school, right, attending school. And these F schools, these are schools that parents choose.

Sometimes they're the only option in a rural area. But parents are typically happily involved in these schools. They're staffed with high-quality teachers and administrators. I did reach out to a couple, you know, schools on the D and F list, and I asked. You know, in some cases, these folks at these schools were just a point or two away from a higher letter grade, but certainly it can be very demoralizing.

GILGER: Is there a system in place to help schools get out of that area if they're performing poorly, if they get an F? Like, are there programs that are going to help them not get an F next year?

BEEBE: Yeah, there is some help from the Department of Ed, from the school turnaround team. Arizona has literacy coaches in our classroom. So we have statewide some stagnant reading scores and literacy scores, which is typical across the country. You know, after COVID, every state struggled with test scores. So it's nothing bad or unique about Arizona.

What we know works, especially with literacy with young kids, is we have a coaching program. We have literacy coaches in Arizona. We have 36 currently that work in our lowest performing schools. We based this off of a program carried out in Mississippi called the Mississippi Miracle. And one of the biggest parts of the Mississippi Miracle, they raised their literacy proficiency scores hugely over the course of 11 years, is that the state invested in literacy coaches.

And these are teachers who work specifically with kids on literacy intervention all day. That's all they do. And I think, you know, letter grades are meant to be a tool for schools on how to improve, too. So when we see these lower test scores or lower literacy scores, schools know what types of interventions could help raise those.

It comes down to a question of staffing availability, funding availability. But certainly we're trying to raise awareness about this literacy program. The state has a goal of getting 50 literacy coaches in the classroom by 2026. And I think from this data that's come out with the letter grades and the test scores, that would be a great investment for the state.

GILGER: Let me ask you lastly, Rebecca, about, I guess the other part of the conversation about schools in Arizona in general, which is always about funding, right. How are these letter grades you think related to funding? Like, do you think, you know, if we weren't the 49th state in the country when it comes to school funding, we would have better-rated schools?

BEEBE: Yeah, I would say, so we're pretty low in terms of funding, but we're middle of the pack in terms of achievement. So I would say Arizona schools are already doing pretty incredible work with less resources. And I think we can be an example to some of these East Coast states who maybe had more homogenous populations than we do, of how we embrace diversity in our schools.

We accept every kid, regardless of the language they speak, regardless of the income in their home, regardless of their ability. We accept every student. And with those limited resources, we still considerably do pretty well. I think I would go back to the example of the literacy coaches. If we could get more highly qualified individuals in schools working directly with students, especially in those young grades, on things like literacy.

I've been hearing a lot of conversation in the public and from public policymakers about low literacy scores. My answer to low test scores or low letter grades would be, let's invest in the resources that we know help student achievement. You know, it'd be helpful for the state to continue investing in things like a literacy coach and things like math interventionists in schools.

That also helps. Not only does it help the student, it gives the teacher a break. When their lowest performing students can be pulled out of the classroom or worked with one on one in the classroom on their literacy skills, on their reading, it helps the student obviously achieve. It helps the classroom environment because sometimes our lower achievers are class clowns, maybe, or something like that.

And it helps with teacher retention because they have another professional in there helping them. I think teachers are doing their best every single day in really hard circumstances. The teacher shortage, I think, certainly doesn't help. We have to remember this in the context of the teacher shortage.

GILGER: An ongoing teacher shortage for decades now. Yeah. And new stats out on that just this week saying 1,000 teachers have quit since July.

So that obviously the teacher shortage issue has been tied to funding for years, but salaries have been bolstered. I mean, I wonder, I guess, when it comes to letter grades in schools, like, are those going to impact the teacher shortage, you think in a, in a negative way, in a positive way? What's the connection in your mind?

BEEBE: I think that would be a better question for a teacher. But I do think that it is really devastating to be labeled failing, to be labeled low performing. And without all the other context involved. To have a student come to second grade not speaking English, you know, maybe at the end of third grade, they're not going to be proficient.

But I think everybody that knows that student would probably be absolutely amazed by the English skills and the literacy skills and all the other skills they pick up in school in just a year and a half. So these letter grades really require some context and some deep digging to really understand more than just the one single summative letter grade.