Search for your school’s 2017 letter grade

Fewer than 300 received ‘A’ grade, according to the Department of Education

Fewer than 300 Arizona district and charter schools got an “A” grade under the state’s new ranking system, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education.

This year, 294 elementary and high schools received a coveted “A” ranking, 602 schools were graded a “B,” 535 sites earned a “C” and 204 schools were given a “D” grade.

Fifty-four schools earned the lowest mark, an “F,” and 149 schools were not yet rated by the state because either the data was not finalized or the school appealed the grade.

As the data currently stands, just under 16 percent of all grades issued to schools were A’s, slightly lower than the state’s previous prediction.

The rankings grade the quality of schools on an A-F scale and, for elementary schools, rely heavily on how well students performed on the state’s standardized test, AzMERIT.

AzMERIT test scores determine 90 percent of elementary schools’ grades.

High schools are graded differently. While half of high schools’ grades depend on how their students test on AzMERIT, the rest of their grades are calculated through graduation rates and several indicators of how they’re preparing students for post-secondary careers.

In the year they spent creating the new grading system, state leaders tried to rectify past concerns that the old grading system was not fair for schools in rural areas or to those with higher percentages of impoverished students.

But several educators and advocates have criticized the new grading system for being too complicated for teachers, parents and the public to easily decipher.

The new letter grades also have lower “cut scores” than a traditional grading rubric because of the reality that, while students are improving incrementally on AzMERIT, the majority of the state’s students still are not passing the reading or math portions.

These are the cut scores for elementary schools:

» A grade: 86-100 percent of total possible points in the new grading system. » B grade: 85-74 percent.

» C grade: 73-62 percent.

» D grade: 61-50 percent.

» F grade: Less than 50 percent. And here are the cut scores for high schools:

A grade: 86-100 percent of total possible points in the new grading system. B grade: 85-71 percent.

C grade: 70-56 percent.

D grade: 55-41 percent.

F grade: Less than 41 percent. The letter grades have significant impact on schools’ teaching behavior because parents have used the grades in the past to decide where to enroll their children in Arizona’s school-choice landscape.

But the Arizona State Board of Education, in materials explaining the new grading system, said parents should not use letter grades as the only factor for choosing a school.

“It is recommended that parents couple this system’s results with qualitative data found through tours, discussions with principals and other parents or other means, to understand if a school is the right fit for them,” a state board pamphlet reads.

No federal mandate exists for states to label their schools via letter grades. However, Arizona schools are required under state law to be issued letter grades starting this year.

Several state board members in the months leading up to the grades’ release expressed concern about potential flaws in the system but acknowledged they had to move forward with creating the system because of state law.

A state Department of Education analysis last month found that schools with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students were far less likely to earn an A grade than schools with low percentages.

The State Board of Education finalized the new letter-grade system in late September.

The Arizona Department of Education, which is in charge of calculating and vetting the grades, had been directed by the education board not to publicly release the grades until Monday.

But the state apparently released the data in response to public-records requests from several local media outlets.

Dan Godzich, state Department of Education spokesman, said in an email Friday that “this is a file still being worked on and the file that will be released on October 9th will have differences.”

The State Board of Education sent a memo to schools Friday in which it described the letter grades as “preliminary.”

That memo indicates that the state board will solicit public input through Nov. 6 “for potential revisions to final letter grades for school year 2016-2017 and in upcoming years.”

Tim Carter, president of the Arizona State Board of Education, did not immediately respond to requests for comment and clarification on the memo sent to schools.

Daniel Scarpinato, spokesman for Gov. Doug Ducey, said Friday afternoon that the governor and his staff were “taking a detailed look at the preliminary letter-grade results.”

“We will be working with the Board of Education to ensure that the final letter grades will provide parents the most accurate view of their child’s school and will be used by schools to drive results,” Scarpinato said.

Godzich said that state schools superintendent Diane Douglas had no plans Friday to comment on the new letter grades.

Douglas, who sits on the State Board of Education, was the sole member to vote against finalizing the letter-grade system in September.

Douglas, one of the most vocal critics of school letter grades, had said that while she knew that state law requires public schools be graded this year, she refused to support a system she felt over-relies on test scores.