Arizona's Academic Standards Assessment (AASA)

AASA 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 students in grades three to eight take the AASA assessment in English language arts and mathematics. AMS students in grades fifth and eighth grades will take the AzSci test. AzSci is a computer-based statewide achievement test.

AMS’s curriculum is designed to prepare students to successfully pass AASA 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 AASA.

The AMS district as a whole has outperformed local schools by an average of over 20% in math, language arts, and science since 2010. AMS consistently achieves nearly double the passing rate as the state average on the AzSci and AASA.

AMS 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 AASA results and to be able to use it to gauge academic progress from one year to the next.