PARCA continues to explore the results of the state’s new standardized test, the Aspire, and is developing new ways of looking at the data.

Aspire was developed by the same testing company that offers the college readiness benchmark test, the ACT. From grades 3-8, Aspire measures student progress at each grade level toward an eventual goal of graduating from high school ready for college-level work. In the graphics below, we will look at the average percentage of students scoring “proficient” on the Aspire. A student scoring at or above proficient is considered “on track” in the journey to success in college.

Below are three new glimpses of Aspire results from 2014.

In each of the graphs, the circles represent school systems. A system’s horizontal position is determined by the percentage of students in that system qualifying for a federally-funded free or reduced lunch, a marker of poverty. Systems are arranged from 100% poverty, on the left, down to 0% poverty, on the right.

A system’s vertical position represents the percentage of test scores at or above proficient. The higher the circle the greater the percentage of students scoring proficient.

These three graphs within the chart below represent blended results for math and reading from grades 3 through 8. The first looks at the results for “all students” in a system. Then, using the menu at the top, you can also view the results for students from nonpoverty and poverty backgrounds. The red line through the middle represents the relationship between proficiency and poverty. In effect, this line shows the typical proficiency level for a school system, given the level of poverty among its students.

What do you see in the results? The first observation is the most obvious. When results from all students are considered, systems that have higher rates of poverty have a lower percentage of students reaching proficiency. This is not a new finding. Students coming from a background of poverty tend not to do as well on these test as students from nonpoverty households. This is consistent with results produced in Alabama and nationwide for many years. Closing this achievement gap is one of the great challenges of public education.

At the same time though, these graphs also indicate that schools and school systems make a difference. Those systems that are above the average line are outperforming expectations. There are lessons to be learned from those systems. It is also obvious from the wide span of performance among poverty students, that poverty status does not dictate results. In some systems, children from poverty backgrounds are succeeding at much higher rates than in others. It will take further study to isolate the secrets to success.  

There is even more promise when you look at results at the school level. In the graph below, you can see the wide variation in success rates. Identifying successful schools and learning from their approaches should be a priority for the state and for struggling systems that want to improve.

Thanks to Plan 2020, the state’s strategic plan for improving the state’s public schools, schools and the communities they serve have increased access to data on school performance measures.

Local systems are examining how their students perform on the Aspire, the new benchmark test given to student in grades 3 through 8. Systems are also tracking graduation rates, remediation rates, and scores on the ACT, the widely-known college readiness test.  These performance measures, and others, can be used in goal-setting and evaluation. Through a careful analysis of the results, school systems can recognize areas of strength and areas of weakness, and then craft plans to improve.

In Tuscaloosa, The West Alabama Chamber of Commerce and the Schools Foundation, for the third year in a row, commissioned PARCA to take a close look at the Tuscaloosa City and County Schools Systems and present the results to city and county school leaders and to the public at large at their annual Education Summit, held this year on June 16.

PARCA’s report put the two systems’ results in context, describing the financial and personnel resources each system has to work with and the demographics of each system’s students. PARCA identifies similarly situated systems in the state, creating a peer group of schools, and then compares the Tuscaloosa City and Tuscaloosa County results with those of peer systems.

“We believe that every student can learn at higher levels, and that means every school can improve its results from year to year,” Williams told the audience. “There is no such thing as a perfect school or school system, or a perfect organization of any type for that matter. A school system has a number of goals, and it needs to focus on meeting all of them. Like any organization, it will do some things very well, other things pretty well, and still others not so well. So we don’t give school systems a single rank. Rather, we analyze the key indicators so that a system can build on its successes and at the same time improve where that is needed.”

Take a look at the 2014 ACT Aspire results for Heard Magnet Elementary school in Dothan.

The following images show the percentage of students at each grade level scoring proficient on the Aspire, the state’s standardized test. Students scoring proficient on the tests of math and reading are considered to be on track to advance through their academic career toward an ultimate goal of graduating from high school ready to succeed in college level coursework.

The charts show the results for All Students at the school and also display the results for students who qualify for the free or reduced lunch program (identified as “Poverty” in the chart), and also for the students who don’t qualify (“Nonpoverty”).

What do we see at Heard? Here are some important things to note:
1. High percentages of students are academically on track. The percentage of proficient students at Heard is far above the state average proficiency rate (The state average is represented by the red reference line).
2. The gaps in performance between students from poverty households and students from nonpoverty households are relatively small. In some grades, the success rate for poverty and nonpoverty students is practically the same.

Heard’s results are an exception. In general, across Alabama, there is about a 30-point gap between the success rate of nonpoverty and poverty students on these benchmark tests. That’s true in both reading and math. However, Heard’s results are proof that the performance gap is not inevitable.  Similar results can be found in schools around the state.

It should also be noted that Heard has some advantages on these performance measures. It is a magnet school. It is drawing students and parents that have high expectations for academic success, which may mean that it isn’t working with the children who have the highest degree of disadvantage. Also, Heard’s student population doesn’t have the same concentration of poverty as other schools in the state. About 36 percent of Heard’s students are in the poverty subgroup. Statewide almost 60 percent of children are in that poverty subgroup. At some schools, virtually all the children come from poverty households. When we look at results statewide and across subjects and grades, a lower percentage of students achieve the proficiency benchmark in schools where poverty is more concentrated. All these considerations should be kept in mind when viewing and comparing school results.

Previously, we launched a tool for viewing 2014 ACT Aspire results that allowed you to look at your local system’s results in comparison to the state average. The default view in that tool showed separate results by grade for All Students, for Nonpoverty students, and for Poverty students. Below, we’re making a new tool available, one that allows you to look at the 2014 ACT Aspire results at the school level.

In the table below, you can look at 2014 ACT Aspire results, school-by-school, for grades 3-8. As at the system level, this tool will allow you to look at results for the various demographic subgroups available.

You’ll notice that in this view we’ve included a blue reference line labeled “Poverty.”

This is the statewide percentage of students from the poverty subgroup who scored proficient on the Aspire test in the featured grade level and subject. We include that reference line because in some cases, the state did not publish a Nonpoverty or a Poverty result. The state withheld those results in cases where the number of students in one of the groups was small enough that the reported scores might be linked to individuals.

In cases where the Poverty and Nonpoverty results are withheld, only an “All Students” result will appear. That scenario tends to occur most often in high-poverty schools and school systems. That is why we included the Poverty reference line, so that the All Students result can be compared to the statewide proficiency percentage for students for poverty households.

In subsequent posts, we plan to make available additional capabilities, like the ability to compare multiple schools or school systems on individual measures.

Each year, PARCA travels to Dothan to present data on the city school system to educators, parents, and the public.

The PARCA analysis, sponsored by the Dothan-based Wiregrass Foundation, presents Dothan City School enrollment, financial data, and test scores results as they compare to peer school systems and to state and national averages. How does the system stack up over all? How do students from poverty backgrounds perform compared to similarly-situated students statewide? How do nonpoverty students perform compared to peers elsewhere? What is the system’s ultimate success rate in preparing students for college as measured by the ACT (the college readiness assessment) and by the rate at which Dothan students have to take remedial education courses after enrolling in college?

The deep dive into the data is part of the Dothan City School System’s commitment to continuously improve. The analysis provides a basis for understanding the test results. The system takes ownership of the results, providing an opportunity to celebrate successes, but also to identify areas in need of improvement. Strategies are developed to counter weaknesses. Resources are devoted to those strategies, and future results are monitored.

It’s an approach that has led to success. In 2005, over half of Dothan’s system-level results on the Alabama Reading and Math Test were below the state average. By the 2012-2013 school year, all the system’s results were at or above the state average.

Starting in 2014, Alabama changed its statewide assessment test to the ACT Aspire, and it was the results of the new test that were presented this week, along with financial data and college readiness results from ACT. Dothan’s baseline results showed that on the new tests, Dothan, as a system, bested the state average on most measures. However, when the results are viewed at the school and grade level, it is clear there is room for improvement. Like school systems across the state and nation, Dothan sees a wide disparity in results between poverty and nonpoverty students. Dothan schools with high percentages of poverty in the student body generally showed results that trailed far behind state averages. On the other hand, on several measures, poverty and nonpoverty students at Dothan magnet schools scored proficient at almost the same rate, erasing that stubborn achievement gap. In fact, in some grades and subjects, poverty students at Dothan magnets beat the proficiency rate of non-poverty students statewide.

PARCA has been working on a new system for presenting information about Alabama’s public schools.

In the next few posts, we will be rolling out some tools that we hope educators, parents, students and communities will find useful in understanding how their local schools stack up: where they are succeeding and where they might improve.

Our first offering is a way of looking at ACT Aspire results from 2014. The display below compares the performance of Alabama systems with the state average result for students in grades 3-8 in either reading or math. The results represent the percentage of students who scored at or above the level the state considers proficient at that grade level. The state average result for all students is represented by the red reference line in the graphics.

You can explore the results by picking which system you want to compare with the state.

You can look at the results for all grades or choose to focus on one.

You can also choose to look at the results by demographic subgroup. By default, the results displayed are for the following subgroups of students within the system: “All Students,” “Nonpoverty,” and “Poverty.” You can choose to add other subgroups to the comparison or focus on a specific one.”

Across the state, you’ll note gaps in the results between various subgroups.  Students from poverty households tend, as a group, to perform less well on these tests than students from nonpoverty backgrounds. It’s true here and it’s true across the country. It’s one of the great challenges of public education. It’s also true though that kids from poverty backgrounds perform better in some systems than in others. This creates the potential to learn from those successes and replicate best practices.

These were tests administered in the spring of 2014. Students across the state are currently taking the ACT Aspire for 2015. 2014 was the first year the ACT Aspire was taken statewide. Because it’s the first year of a new test, results were slow to be published. It is hoped that results from the testing going on right now will be available much more quickly. And we plan to be in a better position to analyze and publish them quickly. The Aspire tests are one of the cornerstone measures in the state’s strategic plan for educational improvement, Plan 2020.  In future posts, we’ll present additional avenues for looking at Aspire data and will explore the results of other measures that are part of Plan 2020.

Alabama public high schools produced more graduates in 2014 than they produced the previous year, and more of them enrolled in Alabama public two-year and four-year colleges and universities, according to the latest High School Feedback report from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE).

However, a slightly higher percentage of those entering freshman, 32.1 percent, had to take remedial courses in English or math to prepare them for college-level work, according to the ACHE report. (To explore results for schools and systems scroll to the bottom of the page). Plan 2020, the state’s strategic plan for educational improvement, calls for increasing the high school graduation rate and decreasing the need for those graduates to enroll in remedial courses.

Each year, ACHE works with the Alabama Department of Education and the state’s colleges and universities to account for how many graduates from Alabama high schools enrolled in Alabama public colleges and universities.

The report also gathers data on how many of the entering freshmen required remedial courses in college. These are courses designed to bring entering freshman up to the level of competency required to perform at the college level.

Ideally, all students graduating from high school and enrolling in college would be prepared by their high school to be college-ready.

Students who need remediation are taking courses that don’t count toward college completion. Remedial courses are a cost to the students, who are paying for non-credit courses, and a cost to colleges and universities that provide the courses.

The State Department of Education has set goals for increasing the percentage of students that graduate from high school and goals for increasing the percentage of those students who are college ready, work and who are not in need of remediation.

The latest report from ACHE tracked students who graduated from high school and enrolled in college in 2014.

Before getting too deep in the details of the data, it is important to note some limitations.

First, the only students who show up in the survey are those who graduated from Alabama public high schools and who then enrolled in Alabama public colleges and universities, both two-year and four-year institutions. Students who attended private schools for high school or who entered private colleges and universities are not counted. Neither are students who chose to enroll in out-of-state colleges and universities. So, the statistics explored don’t capture a true college-going rate for the state or for individual schools.

And the remediation rate calculated for any high school only applies to the graduates of that high school who enrolled in an Alabama public higher education institution.

As a final caveat, there is not a common definition across Alabama public higher education institutions for who qualifies for remediation. At some schools, the bar may be higher; at some, it might be lower.

So to the data:
Alabama public high schools produced 1,007 more graduates in 2014 than they did in 2013 and sent an additional 500 graduates to Alabama colleges and universities (22,872 in 2013 vs. 23,379 in 2014).

In 2014, 51 percent of graduates went on to a public two-year or four-year college in Alabama, the same percentage as the year before.

Of those recent high school graduates going to college, 11 percent needed both remedial math and remedial English; 15 percent needed only remedial math, and 6 percent needed only remedial English. In total, 32.1 percent took either remedial math, remedial English or both. That is a slightly higher percentage than in 2013 when 31.8 percent enrolled in remedial courses.

The dashboard below allows you to explore detailed results for schools. There are two tabs, one focusing on remedial data, the other on in-state public college going rates. Bear in mind that the percentage of high school graduates needing remedial math and the percentage of graduates needing remedial English won’t add up to the total percentage of graduates in need of remediation. Some of those graduates needed remediation in both subjects. The total percentage figure avoids double-counting the students in need of remediation in both subjects.

Alabama state government employs 4,923 fewer people than it did in 2008, according to the figures provided by the Alabama State Personnel Department. With the exception of 2013, the total number of state government employees in 2014 was the lowest it’s been since at least 1996, according to State Department of Personnel annual reports.
 

From 2013 to 2014, state employment edged up slightly with a net increase of 140 employees across all departments, yielding a final total of 30,611 employees. The state employed 35,534 in 2008, before the financial crisis and the years of budget cutting that followed.

The biggest employment declines came in Mental Health (down by 1,593 employees). Much of that decline can be attributed to the closing of three mental health institutions in the state, Partlow, Greil, and Searcy. Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa was replaced by a new hospital and its patient capacity was lowered from 350 to 268. To make up for lost capacity in mental hospitals, the state shifted funding to community-based care operations. The moves were designed to provide care closer to home and family.

The State Health Department also saw a substantial decline in employees. The largest reason for the drop in employment was due to a transfer of a program serving to the elderly and the disabled to the Office of Senior Services. The Department of Senior Services restructured the program with those home care services now being administered by local Area Agencies on Aging. Those agencies, in turn, contract with home health services companies to provide the services to recipients.

A state hiring freeze was in effect for much of the period between 2008-2014, so when employees retired or left for other jobs those positions went unfilled. Some employment changes in various departments reflect other program transfers and consolidations.

The PARCA Quarterly Winter 2015 edition provides perspective on Alabama’s budget challenges and reform efforts in education, Medicaid, and the state prison system.

The Quarterly provides background for our upcoming annual meeting, which is February 13 at the Harbert Center in downtown Birmingham.

The meeting will feature:

       State Sen. Cam Ward and Alabama Sentencing Commission Executive Director Bennet Wright presenting proposals under consideration by the Prison Reform Task Force.

       State Health Officer Donald Williamson and Kim Eason and Julie Wells of the Patient Care Network of East Alabama discussing changing approaches in the Medicaid program.

       State Superintendent of Schools Tommy Bice providing an update on the progress of Plan 2020.

       Gov. Robert Bentley delivering the luncheon address.

Friday, February 6 is the deadline for registration. Until then, you can get more details and register online.

The Alabama Department of Education this week released statewide results of its Grades 3-8 assessment tests, broadly known as the ACT Aspire.

The Aspire tests, which were taken statewide for the first time last spring, replace the Alabama Reading and Math Test which had been used to measure student and school performance.

The Aspire offers several advantages. Devised by the well-known national testing company, ACT, the Aspire is more closely aligned with national performance measurements. It includes a benchmark scoring system designed to show whether a student is on track academically to graduate from high school ready for college.  You can read more about the Aspire and Alabama’s new assessments from the A Plus Education Partnership. And here you can find the State Department of Education’s discussion of statewide Aspire results.

PARCA uses test data from the Aspire and other sources as well as available financial data to help school systems identify their strengths and the areas in need of improvement.

As this is the first year the state is using Aspire as a performance measure, the results set a baseline from which future improvement and growth can be measured.  As expected though, the results establish a tougher, and likely more accurate, benchmark for academic proficiency. On the ARMT, the percentage of students scoring above proficient ranged between 68 and 93 percent, depending on the grade and subject tested. On the Aspire results, the highest percentage of proficiency could be found in 3rd grade math where just over half the students (52 percent) were deemed to have met or exceeded the proficiency level for that grade. On the other hand, only 29 percent of 8th graders scored at or above the readiness benchmark in math.

Raising Alabama’s high school graduation rate to 90 percent would produce an economic impact to the state’s economy similar to landing an industrial mega-project, and that impact would be repeated each year the 90 percent rate is maintained, according to a new report released Saturday by the Business Education Alliance.

The report, authored by the Public Affairs Research Council with economic modeling performed by Auburn University at Montgomery Economics Professor Keivan Deravi, was commissioned by the BEA to quantify the potential benefits of the state’s education improvement plan, Plan 2020.

Presented Aug. 2 to the governor, legislators and business leaders assembled at the Business Council of Alabama’s annual governmental affairs conference at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, the report models the impact of raising the graduation rate from the current 80 percent rate to Plan 2020’s goal of reaching 90 percent by 2020. (Presentation Slideshow, available here).

“Economic models prepared for this report predict that if we reach the goal by 2020, the state’s economic output will be $430 million greater that year than if our graduation rate were to remain at its current level,” the report finds. “Each year we sustain the 90 percent graduation rate, each class of graduates would be 5,643 larger, with 3,564 of them going into the workforce, resulting in a net addition of 1,167 more people employed. Each class graduating at 90 percent would collectively earn $68 million more than a class graduating at the 80 percent rate.”

On top of the direct impact from the new graduates, the increased employment and earnings would produce a multiplier effect, further stimulating the state’s economy.

Deravi describes the potential impact as a “permanent upward structural shock to the State’s economic resources.”

“As such, it will, continuously and exponentially, add to economic prosperity of the State’s economy,” Deravi said.

If Plan 2020 succeeds in its aim of producing graduates who are better prepared for college and careers, the impact will be even greater. Those more highly-qualified graduates would be more likely to finish college, further raising the educational credentials of Alabama’s 21st Century workforce.

PARCA Executive Director Jim Williams describes Plan 2020 as a strategic opportunity akin to the one Alabama seized when it landed Mercedes.

“It’s a far more ambitious improvement plan than anything I have seen in my 26 years at PARCA,” Williams said.

While the marquee goal of Plan 2020 has been widely discussed, what is less well understood is that the Plan is much more than an announcement an ambitious goal.

Plan 2020 contains a host of specific strategies for improving Alabama’s educational offerings from the earliest years of a child’s life, straight through to focused planning for college and career.

It’s important for the state’s political, business, civic, and educational leadership to understand the comprehensive and interdependent mechanics of the plan. For Plan 2020’s goals to be realized, it will need a unified commitment to see it through to full implementation.

The report attempts to describe the breadth of the activity encompassed by Plan 2020. The Plan calls on the schools:

1. Start Early: by expanding Alabama’s First Class Pre-K program so that students enter school with a strong foundation.

2. Set High Expectations: by adopting new nationally-competitive educational standards which call on Alabama students to learn at the level expected of students in other states. Plan 2020 includes a more rigorous system of assessments that should provide a clearer picture of whether students are truly reaching the level of preparation needed for college and career readiness. The higher standards and more rigorous assessments are backed up by a new accountability system which will provide a better picture of which schools are getting the job done and which need to improve.

3. Break down barriers to learning: schools across the state are adopting a concerted approach for identifying and addressing factors that often lead to school failure. These include economic and educational disparities, attendance, academic and discipline problems.

4. Seek continuous improvement in teaching and leading: educators are being called on to teach students to a higher level and thus need support and resources to continuously improve their abilities to deliver in the classroom. The Plan calls for higher standards for teacher preparation programs, new productively-structured evaluations for educators, and mechanisms for recruiting the best and the brightest into the teaching field.

5. Equip Every Student with a Plan for Success and a Pathway to Prosperity: Plan 2020 seeks to better connect classroom learning to its applicability in the wider world. It includes initiatives to get students thinking earlier and more clearly about their future plans and mechanisms for engaging business with the education so that what’s taught in school prepares students for the demands of the modern workplace.