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The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama has released its analysis of the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program, the state’s standardized testing suit for grades 3-8, as the Alabama Literacy Act has taken full effect.
The largest percentage jump occurred in the English Language Arts test administered to third graders. Between 2023 and 2024 testing in ELA, proficiency increased by nine percentage points.
Results also revealed a greater number of third graders performing above their grade level at Level 4, about 20 percent of the students fell in this range. With great strides in the right direction, the percentage of students performing below grade level sits consistently around 10 percent.
A few factors likely contributed to the overall increase. The newly minted mandate that students must pass the third-grade reading test to advance to fourth grade took effect this testing cycle and ongoing statewide initiatives to improve reading instruction in earlier grades, both courtesy of the Literacy Act.
Students who were in third grade during the last school year were in Pre-K in 2020 and experienced the most disruption during kindergarten. As schools have moved farther away from instructional disruptions caused by Covid-19, scores have increased from year to year.
The ACAP also includes math sections for grades 3-8. Improvements were made in each grade except for third grade, which decreased from 43.6 percent proficiency in 2023 to 42.2 percent in 2024. The state, however, is in the early phases of the Alabama Numeracy Act, which functions similarly to the Alabama Literacy Act.
The Alabama Numeracy Act has placed math coaches in each K-5 school, created intensive programs for struggling students and ramped up training for teachers and principals in schools. Summer programs focusing on math were aligned with literacy programs for K-3, and a program was developed for fourth and fifth graders in full-support schools.
The ACAP science test is only offered to fourth and eighth graders. The proportion of fourth graders achieving proficiency rose from 41 percent to nearly 44.5 percent. The percentage of eighth graders scoring proficient declined from 41.1 percent in 2023 to 38.7 percent in 2024.
Proficiency improved for all student subpopulations, with economically disadvantaged students showing the most significant gains. Overall, proficiency among economically disadvantaged students rose by six percentage points across all subjects and grades. The largest gain was the ELA assessment with an increase of nine percentage points from 2023.
Department officials confirmed that there were no changes were made to the grading rubric or content of the third-grade ELA tests that would affect increases in proficiency. Although the score threshold for reading sufficiency was adjusted, it did not alter the understood definition of proficiency.
The sheer importance of the third-grade ELA test, given that failure could result in retention, likely spurred greater efforts. The increase in third-grade ELA scores reflects the positive impact of the state’s investment in early reading instruction, including the more than doubled funding for the Alabama Reading Initiative after passing the Literacy Act.
