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Teacher Experience in Years – by District and by School

As we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week, let’s take a look at the years of teaching experience in our public schools. The tools and charts below work best on a desktop or laptop…not so well on mobile devices. The tools allow you to view what proportion of teachers...
Posted On May 06 2015
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Out-of-School Suspension Rates in Alabama’s Schools

Last week, we looked at how Alabama’s school districts earned a Top 5 ranking for the percentage of students who received out-of-school suspensions during the 2011-2012 school year. Now you’ll learn where to find a district’s suspension rates for 2011-2012 and...
Posted On May 05 2015
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What We Know About the AAA’s Nonpublic Participating Schools

Changes were made to the AAA in June 2015. Here is a link to the update. Under the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA), scholarships paid for with state tax dollars that weren’t required to be collected are awarded to students to attend nonpublic participating schools....
Posted On Apr 27 2015
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Jefferson County Schools: Just the Stats

The Jefferson County and Gardendale City boards of education are working toward some type of plan to ensure the separation of the two systems will not resegregate Jefferson County schools. Until Jefferson County invited the federal court to intervene, little was said about what...
Posted On Apr 09 2015
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Comparing Salaries of Teachers and Principals

We are nearing the end of this series on teacher and principal salaries, but there are a few more ways to look at these numbers. In this article, we’ll take a look at teachers’ salaries as a percentage of principals’ salaries. So let’s be clear about what...
Posted On Apr 02 2015
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What Kinds of School Choice Already Exist in Alabama?

There’s a lot of discussion these days about expanding school choice in Alabama. We’ve now added charter schools to the menu, and it looks like more scholarships will be on the way for children in families whose earnings are 185% or less of the federal poverty level....
Posted On Apr 01 2015
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How Principal Salaries Have Changed Since 2009

After looking at the average principal’s salary within a district and how it compares to the families who live in that school district, it’s time to look at how principal salaries have changed since 2009. A few things to remember about these numbers. The amount shown...
Posted On Mar 31 2015
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Principal Salaries in Alabama

After looking at teacher salaries earlier this week, it’s time to look at principal salaries. There are multiple ways that principal salaries are set by a district. In some districts, contract amounts are negotiated. In other districts, principals are paid based on a salary...
Posted On Mar 29 2015
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Spending Priorities in Alabama’s Schools: Coaching Supplements

With lawmakers proposing to increase available tax credits through the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA) to $35 million, we are hearing from those concerned about that money being taken out of the Education Trust Fund (ETF), citing different ways that money could be used. A few...
Posted On Mar 24 2015
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Teacher Salaries: Recovering after the Recession?

Now that we know how teacher salaries compare to the folks whose children they teach, let’s take a look at how teacher salaries have (or have not) grown over the past five years. We know that the entire country has suffered through a significant recession, resultin...
Posted On Mar 23 2015
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Teacher Salaries in Alabama

Governor Robert Bentley has introduced his recommended budget for FY16. The state minimum teacher salary matrix (pictured below) looks the same for FY16 as it did in FY15. Bottom line: no raise for teachers. Listening in to Alabama’s legislators debate about public charter...
Posted On Mar 23 2015
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Additional Compensation Paid to Public Education Employees

Warning: this article contains lots of numbers. Typically, I try to use as few numbers as possible to inform (or start) a discussion. But the accounting system used by our school districts makes it tough to share these numbers in a simple way. The numbers here represent...
Posted On Mar 20 2015
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Input Needed! Alabama’s Draft of ESEA Waiver Renewal Ready to Read

Alabama’s waiver from No Child Left Behind accountability measures is up for renewal. The Alabama State Department of Education has posted it online and given the public until March 31, 2015, to comment on the proposed changes. A 3-page document outlining the changes from...
Posted On Mar 17 2015
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Superintendent Salaries for FY15

Superintendents in Alabama’s 136 school systems will be paid an average of $128,400 for FY15 (October 1, 2014, through September 30, 2015) according to information shared by the Alabama State Department of Education. The average teacher in Alabama earned $47,949 for the...
Posted On Feb 10 2015
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2014 Graduation Rates by School and District

Graduation rates for the 2014 “cohort” have been released by the Alabama State Department of Education. These numbers show the percentage of students who entered the ninth grade in the 2010-2011 school year and who graduated four years later at the end of the...
Posted On Feb 03 2015
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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...
Posted On Jan 21 2015
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ACT Aspire and PLAN Results: Disaggregated

Here they are. The numbers. The spreadsheet. The graphs. The Alabama State Department of Education quietly posted the results in a new section of their web site. District-level results began leaking out late last year, sparking conversations in an erratic manner, not really...
Posted On Jan 21 2015
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About Those Rankings

Everybody loves rankings. Particularly in Alabama. If you want to get attention, create a ranking. And so it goes with the Niche rankings. Niche has accumulated a treasure trove of data and has put it all together in various ways for our consumption. Niche makes a good bit of...
Posted On Jan 12 2015
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Timeline: The Alabama Accountability Act

UPDATE: Changes were made to the AAA in June 2015. This post has not been updated. The timeline below takes you through the birth of the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA) in 2013 through January 5, 2015. Useful information as we await the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision...
Posted On Jan 08 2015
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The Quest for Payroll Records: 350 Days and Counting

I admit it. I like facts. I like details. Charts and data are my friends. Public records serve as source documents for much of what I share here. As the only news organization in Alabama devoted exclusively to covering the world of K-12 public education, I regularly request...
Posted On Dec 29 2014
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Does Alabama Have Racially-Isolated Public Schools?

With the continued push for education reform efforts in Alabama, we need to be asking tough questions of our educators, our boards of education, our lawmakers, and each other about what kind of public education is currently being offered to the children of Alabama and is that...
Posted On Dec 27 2014
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Where Are Alabama’s Children Enrolled in School?

Where are Alabama’s children enrolled in school? Good question. The debate over the number of children utilizing scholarships available through the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA) has raised that question. And it’s a good question. Alabama’s largest scholarship...
Posted On Dec 14 2014
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What the ACT Aspire Results Really Show

The agenda for the Alabama State Board of Education work session for December 11 shows the second topic to be “Student Assessment Report”. While it hasn’t been confirmed, some of us are hoping that State Superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice will share the long-awaited...
Posted On Dec 10 2014
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Teacher Absences in Alabama’s Schools

Teacher absenteeism is a subject we don’t hear about much, but during the 2011-2012 school year, across the state, nearly one-third, or 15,342 of Alabama’s classroom teachers missed more than 10 days of school according to the data from the U.S. Department of...
Posted On Dec 01 2014
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Is Getting Kids to Go to School a Problem in Alabama?

According to State Superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice’s memo proclaiming September “Attendance Awareness Month”, Alabama’s K-12 public school students missed more than 7 million days of school, equating to more than 49 million instructional hours, during the...
Posted On Nov 28 2014
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