(Photo by Sky Schaudt - KJZZ)

An AzMERIT asessment report.

The majority of students that took Arizona's math and language standardized test failed and in some grades, as few as one-third of students earned passing scores.

The Arizona Department of Education released Monday preliminary state level results that showed the percentage of state's 10th and 11th graders scoring worse on the standardized test's English portion than last year. More than 50 percent of 10th and 11th graders are "minimally proficient" in English language arts. Last year 47 percent scored that low.

Students in the 8th grade saw the biggest drop in math proficiency from last year to this one. Officials say this can be partially attributed to the fact they were not double tested last year, so high-performing students taking upper-level math courses were not included.

Overall, however, student performance improved slightly from 2015 to 2016. For 11th graders, 53 percent scored minimally proficient, a slight jump from 2015.

"Even though it may be incremental progress, we should be excited about this even though it feels like a small win," said Erin Hart, chief operating officer of education advocacy group Expect More Arizona. "We have a lot of work to do."

AzMERIT, short for Arizona's Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching, measures the state's new teaching standards, commonly known as Common Core. The test was first administered in 2015 to public school students grades 3 through high school.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

SEARCH: Search Spring 2015 AzMERIT Scores By School

2015-16 AzMERIT Preliminary Passing and Proficiency Rates

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

MATHEMATICS

Source: Arizona Department of Education