Alabama School Connection » Trisha Powell Crain

State Board FY17 Budget Priorities – Are Teacher Raises Coming?

The State Board of Education spent nearly two hours discussing their budget priorities for FY17. State Superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice included teacher raises among those priorities. In today’s Decatur Daily, Mary Sell writes about Bice’s presentation to state board...

Posted On Oct 09 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Who Represents Your School District? You Oughta Know

State legislators are already talking about actions that might affect public education they plan to put on the table in the 2016 Regular Session, which begins February 2, 2016. State legislators have repeatedly said they really appreciate hearing from the folks back home when it...

Posted On Oct 04 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Four Alabama Districts Register to Become Charter School Authorizers

Only four of Alabama’s 136 school districts have filed registration papers to become charter authorizers for the 2015-2016 school year. Those districts are: Athens City, Bessemer City, Birmingham City, and Madison City. Districts had until September 15 to register....

Posted On Oct 02 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

The Bottom Line: How Education Funding Was Affected by the Second Special Session

A lot of numbers are being thrown around as folks try to explain what happened to education funding as a result of the passage of the General Fund budget in the recently-ended second special session. When asked which numbers to believe, Othni Lathram, Interim Director of the...

Posted On Sep 30 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Alabama Moving Forward on P-20W Database Without Federal Grant Money

Governor Robert Bentley, the Alabama Workforce Council (AWC), and the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) are committed to moving forward with plans to develop a P-20W database even without $3.5 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education. On...

Posted On Sep 28 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Central Alabama Folks: Check Out BirminghamWatch!

There’s a new place to find public service journalism on the internet: BirminghamWatch. The news site officially launched its first collaborative effort with Alabama School Connection earlier today: a close look at remediation rates for high school students in the Central...

Posted On Sep 28 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

School Buses in Alabama: The Simple Facts

Did you know that every day, public school buses in Alabama travel the equivalent of three-and-a-half times the length of all public roads in Alabama? Every day. That’s more than 350,000 miles on Alabama’s 102,000 miles of public roads. It includes 7,600 buses running...

Posted On Sep 27 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Are There Building Plans in Your District’s Future?

Are there building plans in your district’s future? If you don’t know the answer, keep reading to learn how to find out. In order to access state-provided capital funds, every school district is required to file a five-year capital plan with the Alabama State...

Posted On Sep 24 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Massive Inequity in Local School Funding, Illustrated

Opportunities available to children in Alabama’s K-12 public schools ultimately determine the haves and have-nots. While the state legislature is charged with funding K-12 schools equitably and adequately, we now know that is not the case. Without state dollars, districts...

Posted On Sep 22 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Inequitable and Inadequate: State Funding for Alabama’s Schools

The results are in: Alabama’s system of funding K-12 public education is most certainly inequitable. And nowhere near adequate. Justin Silverstein of Augenblick, Palaich and Associates (APA) delivered those results at September’s state board of education work session...

Posted On Sep 21 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

State Superintendent’s Position on the Legislature’s Actions

After the legislature settled on transferring $80 million from the Education Trust Fund to the General Fund, some in the education community were confused by statements of support for that decision coming from Alabama’s State Superintendent of Education, Dr. Tommy Bice....

Posted On Sep 16 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Will the Legislature Transfer $50 or $100 Million from the Education Trust Fund?

How much money will the legislature move out of the Education Trust Fund? That’s the multi-million-dollar question. Late last week, the House voted to transfer an estimated $50 million of use taxes out of the Education Trust Fund, beginning in FY17 (which starts October 1,...

Posted On Sep 14 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Here’s How to Find What’s Happening in the Legislature

The Alabama legislature’s online web site, known as ALISON, got a facelift early in 2015. Here’s a brief video on how to find stuff on that web site. Here’s the direct web address: http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/alisonlogin.aspx.

Posted On Sep 14 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Filling in the State School Funding Gap: “We’re Our Own Worst Enemy”

“Our educators are so dedicated, we’re our own worst enemy,” Alabama state superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice said, “because what we do is we take every scrap that we can find to make it work, regardless. And we always have.” He added, “It’s...

Posted On Sep 11 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Results of School Finance Study to be Presented Thursday

At Thursday’s state board of education work session, school finance consultants Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc.. (APA) will present their final report, state superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice confirmed late this afternoon. APA was hired in 2013 to conduct a study to...

Posted On Sep 09 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

ACT Aspire Resources

School districts were provided with the 2014-2015 ACT Aspire results for their students in July. Some school districts have released those results to their students, while others have not yet done so. As such, I thought it useful to gather some ACT Aspire resources here. The...

Posted On Sep 09 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

House Ways and Means General Fund Committee Meeting to Consider New Taxes

The House Ways and Means General Fund Committee will consider a number of bills to raise revenue for the General Fund at 10:00 a.m. today. If you’re not on Twitter, it’s tough to follow the live action. So here’s the action. Follow along. Will Storify it later....

Posted On Sep 09 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Ten Years of Per Pupil Spending, Adjusted for Inflation

With all this talk about state budgets and how the abyss in the General Fund will be filled, it helps to know the facts when it comes to funding for public education in Alabama. So here are ten years’ worth of per pupil expenditures (PPE) by district. Adjusted for...

Posted On Sep 03 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

New Numbers Posted on AAA Scholarship Recipients

The 2014 calendar year numbers are out, showing that nearly 5,800 students received scholarships through the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA). Just under 1,100 of them would otherwise have attended a “failing” public school. While these numbers are helpful to know,...

Posted On Sep 02 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

This Is the 400th Post

This is the 400th post published on the Alabama School Connection web site. It seems a good point to stop and reflect on where we’ve been and where we hope to go. When we first started in 2009, we tracked bills of interest for those who cared about schools. Over the next...

Posted On Sep 02 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Education Funding in Alabama: Is It a Priority?

It is often said that you can tell a person’s priorities by looking at how they spend money. If that is so, then it looks like the Alabama legislature’s priority for public education is about the same as it was a dozen years ago, equivalent to the 2001-2002 school...

Posted On Aug 31 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

A Look at One Solution to the State Money Mess

As we prepare to take a look at the State Money Mess on Sunday in Birmingham, here is one legislator’s solution. Freshman Senator Clyde Chambliss (R- Prattville) appeared on Alabama Public Television’s Capitol Journal last Friday and shared his approach to a solution for...

Posted On Aug 28 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

What Did the Charter School Commission Talk About Today?

The Alabama Public Charter School Commission (the “Commission”) held its inaugural meeting today in Montgomery. [Full video below.] It was live-streamed via the Alabama State Department of Education’s Ustream channel. Nine of the ten regular members of the...

Posted On Aug 27 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Decline in ACT Results Not Unexpected

Alabama’s drop in overall ACT college entrance exam results for the graduating class of 2015 is not surprising, according to ACT, given that the entire graduating class in Alabama now takes the ACT. Results prior to this year only included students taking the ACT on a...

Posted On Aug 26 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

Here Are the Standardized Tests Our Schoolchildren Will Take This School Year

Here’s a look at the state-mandated standardized testing for students in grades three through twelve (ninth graders take no state-mandated standardized tests). The chart does not reflect any testing required by local school district and local school officials. There are a...

Posted On Aug 24 2015

, By Trisha Powell Crain

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