Arizona Grades More Schools A or B Than Any State It Compared

Arizona's Department of Education and State Board of Education awarded an A or B letter grade to 77.7% of the state's 1,564 traditional public schools⧉ in the 2024-2025 school year -- the highest share of any state a June 19, 2026 Arizona Auditor General performance audit (Report 26-101)⧉ compared it to.▸ Yet 55% of the A/B-rated high schools scored below the statewide average in math proficiency⧉, and one A-rated high school in the report's own case study had just 17% of students proficient in math.

A.R.S. Section 15-241 requires the State Board to assign every Arizona public school an A-F letter grade each year, with an A meant to signal excellent performance and an F meant to signal failure.▸ The audit⧉, ordered by an October 7, 2025 resolution of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee under a statute requiring periodic review of the Department, set out to check whether the grades still mean that. Auditors found 469 of 1,337 K-8 schools (35.1%) earned an A and 536 (40.1%) earned a B⧉; among high schools, 117 of 227 (51.5%) earned an A and 93 (41.0%) earned a B⧉ -- a combined 92% of high schools rated excellent or highly performing.

The report illustrates the mismatch with a side-by-side of two 2025 A-rated high schools.▸ "High school 1" scored 17% proficient in math and 29% in ELA⧉; its indicator subtotal of 76.1 out of 100 points fell short of the 82-point cut for an A, and it reached an A only after 6 bonus points pushed its total to 82.1⧉. "High school 2," also graded A, scored 67% math and 77% ELA proficiency -- both well above the statewide averages of 33% and 40%⧉ -- and cleared the cut on indicator points alone. Both schools carry the same letter on their report card.

That gap is not a fluke.▸ Statewide, proficiency scores for 55% of A/B-rated high schools were below the state average in math and 50% below average in ELA⧉; about 45% of A/B-rated K-8 schools were below average in both subjects⧉. Forty-eight K-8 schools carrying an A or B in 2025 were, at the same time, flagged under the federal accountability system's most rigorous intervention categories⧉ for underperforming state achievement targets. Meanwhile fewer than 4% of schools statewide -- 52 of 1,564 -- received a D or F⧉, the grade that triggers mandatory improvement plans and public accountability hearings.

The auditor traces most of the gap to two design choices.▸ First, Arizona's cut points require only 65 of 100 points for a B and 82 of 100 for an A at the high school level⧉ (72 and 84 for K-8) -- among the states reviewed, only Florida sets a lower bar for an A and only Alabama sets a higher one. Second, high schools can add up to 9 bonus points on top of the 100 available⧉ -- for special-education enrollment, testing participation, and postsecondary or military enrollment -- letting a high school reach an A with as few as 73 of 100 indicator points. Removing bonus points from the model would drop 149 schools from an A in 2025 (586 down to 437), and 66 high schools' grades were boosted to an A or B by bonus points alone⧉ -- something none of the 5 other states the auditor reviewed does.

To size the combined effect, auditors re-ran 2025's actual school-level data through a traditional grading scale (90% or more of points for an A, and so on) instead of Arizona's approved cut points.▸ Only 49.8% of schools would have earned an A or B under that scale -- down from 77.7%, a swing of nearly 28 percentage points with no change in a single student's test score⧉.

A third factor: the growth indicator, worth 50% of a K-8 school's grade and 20% of a high school's grade⧉, measures whether a student outscored the peer group that scored similarly to them the year before -- not whether the student moved any closer to proficiency.▸ Auditors found the measure can award full growth points to a school even when its students make no proficiency gains at all⧉, and checked the theory against six years of statewide data: even though schools earned 80% or more of available growth points in nearly every year, statewide proficiency was flat -- 40% ELA and 33% math in 2022, identical in 2025⧉. Outside of proficiency itself, Arizona schools collectively earned at least 80% of available points on nearly every other grading indicator in 2025⧉ -- leaving proficiency as one of the only indicators still capable of telling schools apart.

The audit's second finding adds a compliance gap on top of the design one: Arizona has required, by statute since 2018, separate letter grades for each individual indicator alongside the overall school grade⧉ -- proficiency, growth, and the rest -- but as of June 2026 neither the Department nor the State Board had implemented it.▸ The same finding notes the Department failed to ensure the technical advisory committee that shaped the grading system complied with Arizona's open meeting law for committee meetings held between mid-2018 and June 2023⧉.