There’s good news in Alabama’s latest education report card: ‘Finally seeing the payoff’

Alabama is pretty close to being an A-grade state in education.
Superintendent Eric Mackey said Thursday that the state’s K-12 schools earned an “87” on the education report card released Nov. 13. That’s the highest rating ever since the state started giving itself letter grades in 2018.
“You have to have a plan,” he said. “You have to stay focused on that plan. You have to invest in that plan, and that’s what we’ve been doing now for a number of years, and we’re finally seeing the payoff.”
Third graders have made record achievement on reading scores, he said, and students are making good progress on math and science.
“We’re seeing better graduation rate, improved academics, improved achievement, better growth, and we’re seeing that all the way across the board,” he said.
Report card stats demonstrate improvements in academic achievement, English language proficiency, chronic absenteeism, graduation rates and college and career readiness, according to Marcus Vandiver, with the state department.
What does this mean for your local school? Updated numbers will post online this afternoon and show more individual schools also have improved their report cards, officials said.
“We’ve increased the number of A’s and B’s and decreased the number of C’s, D’s and F’s,” Vandiver said. “Our staff and sections are doing a great job with our schools and our system and we just have some great people working out in the field.”
Birmingham City Schools’ students are making consistent progress, the district said in a release on Thursday. Just one school received an F grade. Two schools in the district were just honored for improving Advanced Placement test scores.
The state rating comes on the heels of good news at the national level.
“There’s been almost eight years of work to get to the highest score ever, and to be the fastest-growing state in reading and math,” said board member Tracie West.
Gov. Kay Ivey this week praised Alabama’s jump from 52nd to 32nd in fourth-grade mathematics and from 49th to 34th in reading.
Alabama’s fourth graders are now scoring near the national average in both reading and math. That’s a big improvement from 2019, when the state ranked near the bottom of the country in both subjects on the National Assessment of Educational Progress survey.