Since 2014, the Business Education Alliance has commissioned PARCA to research education and workforce policy issues, producing a series of reports that have tracked evolving policy, progress, and challenges primarily related to the K-12 education system and its intersection with workforce development. The December 2025 report, Higher Expectations Met and Set, provides a compendium and survey of a decade of research and analysis.
Previous Reports
Alabama Can Improve Student Achievement and Prepare a Future Workforce: Here’s How: A follow-up to a report from Gov. Kay Ivey’s Commission on Teaching in Learning, the BEA report tracks progress toward goals for universal Pre-K and improving performance on the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP), teacher recruitment, addressing disparities in educational opportunity, and access to higher education.
Forging Alabama’s Future: Outlines Alabama’s strategic efforts to improve educational attainment and workforce development to support economic growth. Evaluates Alabama’s progress toward the goal of producing 500,000 highly skilled workers by 2025. Focuses on improving educational attainment, workforce participation, and reentry opportunities for underrepresented populations
Stop the Slide, Start the Climb: Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, Alabama faces both a monumental educational challenge and a generational opportunity to tackle educational shortcomings that have long held us back and which threaten our future economic prosperity. Investment by the state and federal governments will provide the public education system with perhaps its largest-ever injection of discretionary funds.
Education Matters: The 2019 report, Education Matters, is the first in a series of BEA reviews of Alabama’s workforce development system. The BEA developed the report in partnership with the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama and the A+ Education Partnership.
Leadership Matters: A 2018 report prepared for the BEA by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama that examines the crucial role leadership plays in shaping educational outcomes. We showcase six examples where leadership is making a difference and where data indicate students are achieving higher levels of success.
Student Achievement Matters: A 2017 report prepared for the BEA by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama that analyzes the selection of a new assessment for Alabama that will impact everyone, from students in the classroom to the legislators making budget decisions, and why it’s critical to “get it right.”
Exceeding Expectations: A 2016 report prepared for the BEA by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama that identifies a sample of school systems that have performed well and identifies the practices and approaches that have helped them achieve positive results.
Teachers Matter: A 2015 report prepared for the BEA by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama that rethinks how public education recruits, rewards, and retains great educators.
Obstacles Into Opportunities: A 2014 report prepared for the BEA by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, with economic modeling by Keivan Deravi, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Auburn University at Montgomery.