Arizona schools get high marks from state

Each year, Arizona’s schools are graded on statewide assessments, how they improve one year to another, graduation and dropout rates and how they do in helping students learn English.

Public schools — district and charter — receive a label as part of the grading system, known as Arizona Learns. The labels are, from least to best: failing to meet academic standards, underperforming, performing, performing plus, highly performing and excelling.

A majority of Arizona’s schools fell into the best three categories this year, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced this week.

“We have a record number of schools excelling this year, going from 17 percent in 2008 to 21 percent excelling in 2009,” Horne said in a press release. “We also are seeing an increase in the number of schools in the performing plus designation, moving from 21 percent in 2008 to 32 percent in 2009.”

One piece of the measurements, which fall under the federal accountability system known as No Child Left Behind, measures adequate yearly progress from one year to the next. There are 253 points of measurement, and a school can be determined “failing” in that area by missing the mark in just one category.

In 2008, 73 percent of schools made adequate progress; that jumped by one percentage point — to 74 percent — in 2009.

Gilbert Unified School District has 32 excelling schools and six highly performing schools this year. Harris Elementary School was the lone performing plus school, and the district’s alternative schools, Gilbert Learning Center and the Junior High Learning Center, were the performing schools. Higley Unified School District has six excelling schools, including Higley and Williams Field high schools. Chaparral Elementary School was the lone highly performing school, and Gateway Pointe and Higley elementary schools were rated as performing plus.

Barb VeNard, Gilbert’s assistant superintendent of educational services, said she is pleased with the performance of the district’s students.

“Today's AIMS results indicate all schools have either increased or maintained their achievement labels,” said VeNard in an e-mail. “District administrators are looking forward to analyzing the data and generating instructional goals for the upcoming year."

Queen Creek Unified School District has five excelling schools and two highly performing schools, including Queen Creek High School and Queen Creek Middle School.

Queen Creek district officials are “pretty excited” that Newell Barney Junior High School received an excelling label in its first year, said Tom Lindsey, the assistant superintendent of instructional services and human resources.

“There are not many districts that have the percent of excelling schools that Queen Creek has,” Lindsey said. “We consider our scores to be some of the premiere scores in the Valley. It shows what an outstanding job the principals and the teachers are doing.”

All of Chandler Unified School District’s comprehensive schools ranked performing or higher. One school — the district’s alternative school — was listed as underperforming. Last year, the Chandler district had 25 excelling schools; this year there are 27. The additions are Anderson Junior High School and Haley Elementary School, which just completed its first year of operation.

“Overall, we were really pleased with it,” Terry Locke said, district spokesman. “We’re always improving a little bit,” he said.

All of the Chandler district’s high schools received an “excelling” rank.

Mesa Unified School District — the largest in the state — also only had one underperforming school: McKellips Learning Center, one of a handful of alternative programs in the district for students with behavior and attendance challenges.

Mesa had 25 schools ranked as excelling, including all of its Franklin schools, which offer a back-to-basics education. The district is opening a Franklin Junior High when classes resume Aug. 12.

All of Apache Junction Unified School District’s campuses ranked performing or higher.