Major Gains on Reading Scores, More 3rd Graders Reading Sufficiently
Alabama third graders showed major improvement in reading performance in 2024, as the percentage of Alabama students reading sufficiently by the end of third grade jumped by 8 percentage points compared to the previous year. The number of 3rd graders scoring “below grade level” on reading decreased from over 9,000 in 2023 to under 5,000 […]
Graduation and College and Career Readiness
More Alabama high school students graduated ready for college or careers in 2023, according to data recently released by the Alabama Department of Education. Printable PDF available here. Students in the Class of 2023 made gains on all measures, bouncing back from the setbacks suffered during the pandemic and closing the gap between the percentage […]
More Students Workforce Ready in the Class of 2023
The number and percentage of high school seniors graduating workforce-ready rose with the Class of 2023, according to the results of ACT’s WorkKeys Assessment, a test of skills given to public high school seniors. The results are another sign that student performance is recovering from post-pandemic lows, though the recovery is not complete. Printable PDF […]
Alabama ACT Scores Climb
ACT Scores for Alabama public high school students improved in 2023, bucking a downward trend nationally and providing another clue that Alabama schools began recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic more quickly than schools nationally. Students in the graduating class of 2023 were in ninth grade when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S. Printable PDF Document […]
Shifts in Public School Enrollment Seen in the 2023-2024 Fall Attendance Data
Alabama’s public school enrollment is down slightly for the 2023-2024 school year, with a decline in the number of white students enrolled, partially offset by a growing enrollment of Hispanic students. Just over half of public school students, 51% are white, 32% Black, and 11% Hispanic. This year’s enrollment continues a long-term trend. In 2000, […]
Changes to the State Standardized Test and its Scoring
The Alabama State Board of Education voted on Thursday to change the test score students must earn to be considered reading on grade level by the end of third grade. The change was recommended by testing experts due to changes made in the content of the 2023 test and shifts in results. Using the score […]
Alabama Standardized Test Scores Rise in 2023
Alabama public school students improved their performance on statewide standardized tests in 2023, with the percentage of students testing proficient rising across most of the tested grades (3-8) and subjects (English Language Arts (ELA), math, and science). Printable PDF version available here. Figure 1. Trends in Proficiency by Subject Just over half of Alabama students, […]
New Reading Scores Released As Schools Head Toward Full Literacy Act Implementation
About one-quarter of Alabama third graders were not reading on grade level by the end of third grade, leaving them vulnerable to academic struggles as they progress in school, according to data from the reading subsection of the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program released Thursday. Printable PDF version available here. Among second graders, 11,622 or 22% […]
Grad Rate Dipped, but Career Readiness Climbed for Class 2022
As graduation approaches for the Class of 2023, there’s new data available allowing us to look back on last spring’s graduates. The Class of 2022 faced particular challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which struck when they were sophomores and persisted through their junior year. In both those years, the number of kids who dropped […]
ACT Scores Fall for the Class of 2022
In Alabama and across the country, average scores on the ACT, the widely-used college readiness test, dropped for the pandemic-plagued Class of 2022, with Alabama scores reaching their lowest point since 2015. Compared to the Class of 2021, Alabama public high graduates’ average composite score dropped by almost a point from 18.6 to 17.7 on […]