Alabama education

Educators and families in Alabama are among those watching a change that’s coming on New Year’s Day. The legislature passed a measure in 2024 called the Creating Hope and Opportunity for Our Students’ Education Act. The program is known as the CHOOSE Act for short.

APR student reporter Emily Ahearn will examine Alabama’s CHOOSE ACT, which is set to go into effect on New Year’s Day of 2027. Her story airs on Thursday. The measure removes income as a factor for families to get $7,000 in refundable tax credits to “choose” which kind of school they attend. Home schooled children will get $2,000. An analysis of the Associated Press shows children already in private school tend to benefit from scholarships of this type.

A conference to discuss the changing educational landscape in Alabama and explore what’s possible for the future is on the books. More than 400 education advocates, policymakers, school leaders, teachers, students, parents and community stakeholders from across the state are headed to Birmingham for the Alabama Opportunity Summit.

Gov. Kay Ivey has announced that The CHOOSE Act now has a website. This site will allow education service providers and, eventually, Alabama families to prepare for the state’s new education savings account program.

The application deadline to apply for grant money to promote STEM-related projects and education in Alabama K-12 schools is fast approaching. The final day to apply for the TSIN STEM Classroom Grant Program is Sept. 15.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), in partnership with the Bicentennial Volunteers, is helping to create the next generation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers. This is being done through the organizations’ TSIN STEM Classroom Grant Program.

Break out the school supplies and first day of school outfits. Summer break in Alabama is winding down with classes getting back in session for the 2024-2025 school year.

Students left out in the cold by the closing of Birmingham Southern College may have an alternative, one State to the west.

Governor Kay Ivey is set to give her annual State of the State address from Montgomery. Her talk comes less than three weeks after Alabama conducted the nation’s first ever execution by nitrogen gas. An act opposed by the European Union and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Children of color are behind in most categories at state and national levels, according to the Race for Results report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Improvements have been made over the past decade, but no racial or ethnic group came close to the maximum index.