TUSD Receives Low Grades, 8 “F” Grades

On Tuesday, the Tucson Unified School District released the grades awarded by the Arizona Department of Education to each school. Anna Lawrence Intermediate School, Cavett Elementary School, Drachman Primary Magnet School, Maldonado Amelia Elementary School, Ochoa Elementary School, Pistor Middle School, Secrist Middle School, and Valencia Middle School all received an “F” grade.

Eighteen schools received “D” grades.

The Arizona State Board of Education issued the letter grades based on the new A-F Accountability System. The grading system was developed to inform parents about the quality of schools before the start of the academic school year.

[View 2017 AzMERIT scores here]

The ADI reported last month that “parents were supposed to be able to use the grades as a basis of comparison in order to make the best educational choice for their children. As the SBE advisory notes: “The grades do not take into consideration other things the school may be doing well, such as meeting students’ emotional/social or health needs.”

The SBE claims that the “calculations only include quantitative measures that are valid, reliable and comparable across all schools in the state and that aid in the meaningful differentiation of school performance,” in accordance with federal law. That claim is problematic given the fact that the AzMERIT test has yet to go through rigorous, or even marginally adequate testing, to ensure that it measures what it is supposed to measure and does not include bias,” reported the ADI.