At the district level, most districts had more students proficient in each of the three subjects, according to scores posted on the Alabama Department of Education website Tuesday.
The percentage of students in traditional school districts who are proficient in each of the three subjects ranged from:
Results in Alabama’s nine public charter schools were mixed, with some gaining ground in one or more subjects and others losing ground in one or all subjects.
The district-level results are in the table below. Click here if you are unable to see the table.
State-level results broken down by student group characteristics show all but one group has a higher percentage of students who are proficient in English language arts, math and science.
And the one group that backslid - and only in science - was migrant students, whose proficiency levels dropped very slightly by 2/100ths of 1%.
The chart below shows the proficiency levels of students in each group in ELA, math and science. Click here if you are unable to see the chart.
State-level results on multiple tests, shared during a board work session three weeks ago, showed improvement in every tested grade in math, science, and English language arts with one exception: third grade ELA which dropped by one percentage point from 55% to 54% proficiency.
At the time, Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said he was proud of the growth students’ scores have shown, something that isn’t spelled out in the scores but does factor into a school’s report card grade.
Mackey said he was “pretty excited” about the ELA scores. “Math,” he said, “we did not see as much growth. Obviously we’re more concerned about where we are with math proficiency.”
Middle school math proficiency levels remain low overall, though some districts have a high percentage of students who are proficient. “It seems to be kind of stagnant in the middle grades,” he said, “which is where we introduce algebra, algebra skills.”
The ACAP portions students into four levels: level 1 is below grade level, level 2 is “low grade level,” level 3 is proficient and level 4 means a student has mastered the academic standards. Students reaching levels 3 and 4 are deemed “proficient” in reporting.
But proficiency is not the same as grade level, which is a higher bar, Mackey said. “When we think about proficiency,” he said, “those would be students you expect to make A’s or A’s and B’s.” Grade level is a lower bar, he added.
Students in grades two through eight take the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program summative test or ACAP summative, in math and English language arts. Students in fourth, sixth and eighth grade are also tested in science.
High school juniors take the ACT with writing, a college entrance exam and scores in math, ELA and science are a part of a school’s report card each year. ACT scores were also released Monday, improving by a tenth of a point, from 17.3 in 2022 to 17.4 in 2023.
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Proficiency is determined based on a student’s scale score. Scales and cut scores can be found at this link.
The July 31 release, announced at the work session, marks the earliest that test scores have been released under Mackey’s tenure as state chief. “I made a commitment that when we got our new ACAP test,” Mackey said, “we would release the scores in the summer as quick as possible.”
School districts have had their results since early July.
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