Education
Alabama Public Schools Overall Graded B on State Report Cards; JeffCo Schools Score B and Birmingham Schools C
Alabama’s K-12 public schools received an overall grade of B on new school and district report cards released Thursday by the Alabama State Department of Education.
More than half of Alabama’s K-12 schools received As or Bs in this year’s evaluations, the first ones to come out under the changes to the Alabama Accountability Act, which reclassified schools with D or F grades as priority schools and eliminated language labeling schools as “failing.”
“They did away with the outdated and not useful language around failing schools that did not align to anything else that we did,” said State Superintendent Eric Mackey at a meeting of the Alabama State Board of Education on Thursday.
The Board voted to approve changes reflecting those updates at the board meeting.
Data on 1,363 K-12 schools in the system shared with reporters by Mackey showed 262 schools (19%) got As in the 2022-23 school year. 508 schools (37%) received Bs. 370 schools (27%) received Cs. 148 schools (11%) received Ds. 58 schools (4%) received Fs. There was insufficient data for 17 schools.
Of 149 school districts evaluated, 28 districts (19%) received As. 75 districts (50%) received Bs. 30 districts (20%) received Cs. 11 districts (7%) received Ds. 4 districts (3%) received F’s. There was one district with insufficient data.
Birmingham-Area Schools Graded
The Birmingham City Schools received a C, or 72, on the report card, according to data from the state Department of Education. Overall, city schools were given a 38.77 on academic achievement and a 35.70 in progress on English language literacy but an 89.03 in academic growth and an 82.98 on graduation rates. They also received a 23.35 in chronic absenteeism and 59.46 in college and career readiness.
When determining overall scores, heavier emphasis was placed on scores for academic achievement and academic growth, and for graduation rates in schools that have a 12th grade.
Four Birmingham city schools earned As: Christian School, EPIC Alternative, Phillips Academy and Ramsay High. Fifteen schools scored Fs.
The Jefferson County School System received a B, or 81. Overall, the system earned a 50.56 in academic achievement, a 94.02 in academic growth, a 90.29 for its graduation rate and a 47.91 for progress in English language proficiency. It also earned a 17.83 in chronic absenteeism and a 74.83 for college and career readiness.
Four Jefferson County Schools also earned As: Bagley Elementary, Bryan Elementary, Jefferson County International Baccalaureate and Snow Rogers Elementary. No Jefferson County School got an F on the report card.
Read Report Card Scores for Individual Birmingham and Jefferson County Schools, Other Area School Systems and Charter Schools
You also can look up school systems and individual schools statewide on the Alabama Department of Education website.
The state maintains two school and district evaluation systems, one based on federal accountability data and one created by the Alabama Legislature. Both systems consider academic achievement, academic growth, progress in English language proficiency, chronic absenteeism, graduation rate and college and career readiness in calculating grades. While the Alabama Department of Education calls both systems report cards, the federal government does not use the term for its method.
The federal reporting system gave state schools an 83 out of 10. On the state report card system, the state received a similar score on the same factors but academic achievement was 0.13 points lower. In 2022, a bill was passed that changed how English language learners were calculated in the report cards by exempting some students from consideration in academic achievement.
Wayne Reynolds, district representative for District 8, asked for a report on the new priority schools as defined by the law.
Ahead of the work session, Mackey told reporters that the “D” or “F” definition for priority does have some caveats, such as for 9th grade academies or similar feeder schools.
“They get the grade of the school they feed into,” he said.
Mackey said that those schools might not have the grades for the tests required for a grade, so they get the grade of where the students will attend.
Report cards can be accessed here.
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