Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law Feb. 15 suspending letter grades for Arizona public schools for the current school year.

The grades reflect the results of standardized testing, which was suspended for the 2019-2020 school year. Students will be tested this spring, but there will be no letter grade for schools.

While the Arizona Education Association is happy with that action, they are not as pleased with the executive order resuming the AzMERIT, the statewide achievement test. AEA Vice President Marisol Garcia questions its use.

"We don’t feel that the students should be given the AzMERIT this year mainly because what are we testing? We’re testing to see how much a student has grasped based off of Arizona standards during a year of a global pandemic?" Garcia said.

Garcia also said educators have plenty of tools to assess students and they are being done monthly, weekly and sometimes daily. She said those results need to be shared with parents.

For more about the decision to suspend letter grades, The Show spoke with Lily Altavena, education reporter for the Arizona Republic.

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