AzMerit

AzMERIT is Arizona’s new statewide achievement test.  This new test is designed to let schools and families know whether or not their students are on track to be college and career ready by the end of their public school education. AMS Desert Sky students in grades three to eight take the AzMERIT assessment in English language arts and mathematics.  

AMS Desert Sky’s curriculum is designed to prepare students to successfully pass AzMERIT by the end of the school year.  The curriculum is aligned to Arizona’s College and Career Ready state standards and is infused with rigorous depth-of-knowledge practice and application. The state sends detailed reports to parents describing their child’s performance on AzMERIT. 

In our sister school--AMS Flower's first year, students outperformed 75% of surrounding schools. This was also the case for another sister school, AMS Camelback, in their first year of existence 2015-2016.  AMS Prince outperformed all other Title I schools with >70% free and reduced lunch in the entire state of Arizona in the 2014-2015 school year, and consistently achieves nearly double the passing rate as the state average.

AMS Desert Sky uses previous state testing results to inform instruction for the following school year.  Students scoring below proficiency are offered additional tutoring to aid in their educational growth.  Parents can help support their student’s growth by speaking with their child’s teacher or an administrator to better understand their child’s AzMERIT results and to be able to use it to gauge academic progress from one year to the next.