Alabama’s public school students showed improvement on three key measures of academic success, according to data released Thursday (June 12) by the department of education.
The data, shared with the state school board during its work session in Montgomery, showed gains in third-grade reading, high school graduation rates and college and career readiness indicators.
Third-grade reading results
The percentage of third graders who met the benchmark score on the spring reading test is 88.4%, State Superintendent Eric Mackey told board members. That means that just under 6,500 third-graders could be at risk of being retained in the third grade.
The third-grade reading test is a part of the Alabama Literacy Act, first passed in 2019. However, 2024 was the first year students who were not reading sufficiently were at risk of being held back. Ultimately, fewer than 500 students — out of more than 55,000 — were retained because of reading deficiencies.
Mackey reminded board members that they raised the required passing score — from 435 to 444 — on the reading test in October, making it more difficult to compare last year’s results to this year’s.
He cautioned that looking only at the rate — slightly lower than last year’s reported 91.6% — does not portray the improvement.
“If we take the current cut score and then apply it to last year’s data … we would have seen growth,” Mackey said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by the Alabama Daily News.
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