Rural districts improve reading
Most students lost learning during COVID
Three rural Arizona school districts are doing better in reading than other districts in the state, a national analysis of school districts concluded.
Two of the three districts, Mohave Valley Elementary School District and Fort Huachuca Accommodation District, had the best statewide results in math and reading. Snowflake Unified School District came in third place when it comes to reading scores, although math test results show students lost about 25% of a school year’s worth of learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The research shows that Arizona students lost about 70% of a grade’s worth of learning in math between 2019 and 2022 but essentially held steady in reading during the same time period. The median school district student in the nation lost a little over half a school year in math and about 23% in reading.
The Education Recovery Scorecard conducted the study, a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. The research in
cludes data from all students who took standardized tests in third to eighth grades in 3,760 school districts across the country.
In Arizona, the study had access to test scores in 91 districts. Of those districts, 63 included details on Hispanic students’ performances and 11 detailed the performance of Black students.
Data and collaboration keys to performance, leaders say
Mohave Valley, which has about 1,200 enrolled students, gained roughly 60% of a grade’s worth of learning in math and 83% in reading.
Fort Huachuca gained 65% in reading and 23% in math while Snowflake gained 53% in reading.
Mohave Valley Superintendent Cole Young, who took that role in July 2020, said the district has been intentional in its strategy to improve scores across the board.
He told The Arizona Republic that the district took a data-driven approach and used all resources available to create guides and identify exactly what students were expected to know at each grade level.
Instead of instructing students based on where their skills were supposed to be, teachers started identifying children’s skills and helping them learn what they needed to perform better, he said.
“It’s about the human capital, it’s about your teachers,” Young said. “It’s about looking at what’s important to your district, what you value and then weighing and measuring what it is that you find important so that you know whether or not you are doing well.”
Fort Huachuca Superintendent Mark Goodman also said collecting data on how students are doing is one of the district’s strategies to ensure classes meet students’ needs. The key to successful learning is culture, he said.
He said the district has school leaders who greet students every day and tell them they believe in them.
“You have a principal that greets every student every day and tells them he believes in them every time before they take a test . ... And he really builds that culture of success and believing in oneself,” Goodman said. “We also have an outstanding set of teachers that work together, that make sure that their curriculum is aligned with state standards.”
Similarly, Snowflake Superintendent Hollis Merrell said collaboration among teachers is key in leveling the playing field for all students and bringing up their performance.
Snowflake teachers work together and meet weekly to plan lessons and ensure they are teaching the same standards at the same pace, Merrell said.
Reading scores for Arizona’s Black and Hispanic students
The Grand Canyon State was among seven in the nation to increase reading scores for Black students.
Overall, Black students in Arizona gained roughly 17% of a grade’s worth of learning in reading between 2019 and 2022. Scores for Arizona’s Hispanic student population showed a reading improvement equal to 1% of a grade’s worth of learning.
The statewide results for both Black and Hispanic students are smaller than the margin of error, meaning researchers cannot say for sure if scores really increased.
Washington Elementary School District had the best reading scores among Black students in the state with a 36% learning gain.
When it comes to math scores, Arizona is on pace with the rest of the nation since no state improved overall average scores.
Renata Cló is a reporter on The Arizona Republic’s K-12 education team. You can reach her at rclo@arizonarepublic.com, follow her on Twitter @renataclo and join the conversation in our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/arizonaeducation.