State Report Card

In 2012, the Alabama legislature secured a bi-partisan vote that created the Legislative School Performance Recognition Program Act – Act No. 2012-402, which legally requires a letter grade assessment to be assigned to most Alabama public schools. In accordance with this law, as well as the requirements for Alabama’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, Alabama school officials have worked to create the Alabama State Report Card.

The Alabama State Report Card is designed so parents, educators, stakeholders, and others can easily understand how their schools are doing, just as report cards help parents understand how their kids are doing. The goals of the Alabama State Report Card are to provide a starting point, with easy-tounderstand and concise information showing how a school is doing, and to make sure that schools are accountable for explaining that to their communities.

No one score or grade tells the whole story of a school. The Alabama State Report Card uses multiple indicators, including academic achievement, academic growth, chronic absenteeism, graduation rates and college and career readiness (in high schools). We encourage educators, parents and others to dig deeper by visiting the Alabama State Department of Education’s Data Center on the website (www.alsde.edu). We also encourage teachers and administrators to use this as an opportunity to discuss efforts they are making at their local school to improve education.

Hopefully, regardless of the letter grade received, the introduction of the Alabama State Report Card will spark conversation, ideas and solutions to some of the barriers in public education. Knowing the presented information better enables parents and others to make determinations about how their school(s) are doing, and to ask informed questions of their school and district administrators.