MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama high school students are graduating at increased rates, education leaders revealed during Thursday’s meeting of the Alabama State Board of Education.
Officials are hopeful the improvements will lead to additional funding from state lawmakers.
For 2023, Alabama high school students graduated at a rate of 90.04%, an increase of 1.84% from the 2022 graduation rate in 2022. The College and Career Readiness Rate, which measures the number of students who meet one of several readiness indicators, increased by five points in the same time period, from 79% in 2022 to 84% in 2023.
Those improvements were largely attributed to College and Career Readiness grants that the Alabama Legislature first funded to the tune of $10 million in the fiscal year 2023 supplemental education budget, and $15 million in the fiscal year 2023 Education Trust Fund budget.
“Of all the things we do, this is what I’m most proud of because the policy came from the board, the Legislature funded it, our staff has made it work, and we’re already seeing the numbers going up,” said State Superintendent Eric Mackey.
Now, educators are asking for $17 million in the upcoming 2024 supplemental education budget.
“The CCR grants came from a discussion of board members around this table, that if we’re going to require all of our students to have CCR to graduate, we need to support our schools to get there,” Mackey said.
“So let’s go ask the Legislature for money, but let’s not say everybody gets the same amount; let’s allow these folks to work with the district to develop what works best at that school, and let’s target more money to the places that have the most need.”
Alabama lawmakers are currently working on both the fiscal year 2025 Education Trust Fund budget and other education spending bills that total almost $11 billion. The requested $17 million for the CCR grant program is in the supplemental bill that was approved in a House committee last week.
Sean Stevens, the state leader of curriculum with the ALSDE who’s helping manage the new grant program, said that while the increase in graduation rates may seem minuscule, the 1.83% increase, when applied to the 41,890 high school graduates in 2023, would represent 766 additional graduates.
“We want every student in Alabama to graduate and become a successful citizen, and so you can see by just the increase; 1.83% may not sound like a lot to some, but it’s tremendous to go from 88.21% to 90.04%,” Stevens said.
“That’s attributed not only to the efforts of our (school) districts, but solid record keeping and ensuring that no one’s giving up on students.”
Melissa Shields, who serves as the assistant state superintendent of student learning for ALSDE, said that the grant program had shown other benefits beyond just increasing graduation and College and Career Readiness rates.
“When we’re talking about CCR, this is not just for high schools; we are having opportunities K-12, we are really trying to build a pipeline with our students on how they can receive all sorts of industry credentials,” Shields said.
“We’re looking at data to see what jobs are available in your area. We know a lot of our communities want to keep their brightest students, so we’re looking to see what are those opportunities we can have in career tech.”
The CCR grants are awarded directly to school districts, and are prioritized for districts that have a 15-point or greater gap between their graduation and College and Career Readiness rate, with some individual schools receiving as much as close to $400,000.
Grant funding has been used, Stevens said, for a variety of purposes, including college, business and industry tours, test preparation for both students and teachers, and scholarships.