Alabama education is still receiving mixed reactions nationally on the subject of education. A recent study by the financial website Wallethub ranks the state as ninth worst school system in the nation. However, one area where Alabama seems to be making progress is reading.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress ranked reading scores for Alabama fourth graders back in 2019. The results appeared bleak. The state was listed at the bottom among U.S. States. That was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. By January of this year, the results were better. Students in the fourth grade were ranked in the low thirties. Alabama is now one of two states to exceed pre-covid reading levels at the 4th grade level.
“Well, I think a lot of our growth since COVID has partly been in because we went back to class very early,” said Dr. Allison King. She’s the Government Relations Manager for The Alabama Education Association. King says in person learning could be a major factor in this increase.
"We had our students back in school in person before many other states in the country, and that in person instruction and structured environment that our schools provide for our students is important and foundational for their learning,” she said.
Despite the progress among Alabama fourth graders, the state is still falling short. A recent study by the financial website Wallethub ranks Alabama in the low forties for both reading and math. King says on the subject of reading, teachers are provided with many resources for how to help those students and there are numerous volunteer organizations that want to help.
“And there's just different tailored strategies that you will use for different ages, and there's lots of certainly wonderful programs that can foster reading and build literacy in our students as well,” King said. “I know the state has had a strong focus on the science of reading, and that is a program that is a training program, essentially for the teachers on a strategic way to teach literacy to students.”
Another one of those programs for students learning to read and write is Reading Allies. That effort is designed to support students who do not meet or exceed grade level reading standards.
“It is all laid out for you,” said Reading Allies Volunteer Coordinator Dalis Lampkins. She says one session can make a huge difference in a child’s life.
“So you just show up and get to spend time with a kid who is so excited to have 30 minutes of uninterrupted attention from one person and they love the same person coming back and working with them each week,” she said.
Reading Allies sees eighty percent of their students improve during their first year in the program. These programs are a huge help to teachers because they have many different needs they are focusing on.
“So obviously, if teachers could just come to school and teach students, that would be the best case scenario. But our children come into school with a lot of different needs, and a lot of times it's not just they don't just show up to school to learn how to read or to learn math there. They show up to school for a meal. They show up to school for love. They may need health care. They may need lots of different things, socially or emotionally or physiologically before they can get to a place where they're ready to learn.”
Those are not the only challenges for teacher. The U.S. Department of Education notified state leaders in Alabama that close to seventy million dollars in federal budget cuts could be coming for the state’s education system. Allison King says some schools will have to reassess where funds will be used.
“So that's certainly going to be something any kind of budget cut impacts our schools and what our schools are able to do with personnel or resources. And so that's something that our districts and the State Department will have to navigate best on how those dollars will impact our students and the instruction they receive and as well as through supplemental programs, and we'll have to adjust,” she said.
And, money is only one issue facing educators in Alabama. The Wallethub study we looked at earlier ranks Alabama in the low forties nationally for the number of students per teacher. King says reading skills are still under repair in the State and crowded classrooms are a problem...
“You know that they may have a classroom of 20 children, and they're teaching third grade, and some of the children in that class are on a kindergarten level, and some of the children in that class are on a seventh grade level, and you're having to try to tailor your instruction to meet each individual student's academic needs, and that can be very challenging,” King observed.
Uncertainty is another factor. Back in June, the Learning Policy Institute reported that there was no clear indication on when proposed budget cuts from the U.S. Department of Education would start hitting the states. However, reporting from NPR indicated that the reductions began in early July.
