ACT Aspire: Interactive Tables

NOTE: The ALSDE published an updated spreadsheet on February 17, 2015. None of the data points changed except that those districts with zero or less than one percent of students scoring at a particular level (I, II, III, or IV) are now represented with “<1%”. We chose to keep the original data published by the ALSDE in the original spreadsheet (which has now been removed from their web site) as it clearly depicts those districts with zero percent scoring at a particular level.

The data in these tables was taken directly from the spreadsheet provided on the Alabama State Department of Education web site.

These are the results from grades three through eight by system, by subgroup, and by subject.

As a recovering test score addict, I can tell you that it is dangerous to compare one school to another or even one system to another based solely on a standardized test score.

Test scores can start a discussion about schools and districts, but shouldn’t be the final definition.

With that said, these results are difficult to digest.

Even though we have been warned that these scores would be low, that the bar is higher, that the tests are harder because they measure critical thinking as opposed to memorization….these results are still worrisome.

Particularly when you look at certain subgroups of students, including students in special education.

There are many questions that need to be asked, including what needs to be done to impact the level of learning that is ultimately measured by these numbers and how our community can best partner with our school districts and schools to support those efforts.

Here are the tables. One table per grade. Any scores that were omitted due to there being fewer than 10 students in a particular subgroup were not included. All results are available on the ALSDE’s accountability portal.

While these tables are useful for reviewing the scores of all of the schools in one particular district, there are other views that are helpful, including looking at one specific subgroup to determine which schools are doing a great job with that particular subgroup and seeking out what it is that school is doing to be so successful.

Let’s be responsible with these scores, please. Let’s not use them to hammer schools. Let’s use them to ask good questions. And let’s hope that we get some good answers.

Levels III and IV are considered proficient. ACT defines the various levels as:

I: In need of support
II: Close
III: Ready
IV: Exceeds

Additional Resources

Everything written here about the ACT Aspire (compilation of search results)