How does your school system compare with state averages?
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. […]
2014 Remedial Education Rates by High School
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, […]
State Workforce grew slightly in 2014; Still about 5,000 smaller than 2008
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. [iframe […]
PARCA Winter Quarterly Tackles Budgeting, Corrections, Medicaid, and Education
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 […]
ACT Aspire Statewide Results
[iframe src=”//d3602hfvnbc5pq.cloudfront.net/YLzlN/1/” width=”600″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”allowfullscreen”] 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 […]
The Potential Economic Impact of Raising the High School Graduation Rate
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 […]
SAIL-ing to academic gains
Summer Adventures in Learning, the Birmingham-centered collaborative of summer learning programs, has expanded to 30 sites this summer offering academically-enriched summer recreational camps, primarily to low-income children. Children from low-income families often re-enter school in the fall having given up academic progress they’ve made during the school year. SAIL aims to counter this phenomenon, known […]
Tuscaloosa Community Comes Together to Talk About Schools
The Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama hosted an education summit this month, featuring presentations from state Superintendent Tommy Bice, Tuscaloosa City and County School System superintendents, and an analysis of school financial and academic performance data from PARCA. PARCA Executive Director Jim Williams praised the county system’s innovative plan to divide its far-flung schools […]
Final look at the Alabama Reading and Math Test
Use this visualization to explore the results for the Alabama Reading and Math Test (ARMT) over time for the school system you’re interested in. The ARMT, which tested children in grades 3-8, was administered for the final time in the spring of 2013. The test was given statewide and was designed to gauge how well […]
2013 School System Performance on the Alabama Math and Reading Test
In the spring of 2013, Alabama students in grades 3-8 took the Alabama Reading and Math Test (ARMT) for the final time. This spring, new tests developed by the ACT testing company will be given in place of the ARMT and will serve as a measure of student and school performance in these grades. For […]