Gov. Kay Ivey speaks the release of National Assessment of Educational Progress at Daniel Pratt Elementary School on Jan. 29, 2025 in Prattville. A recent analysis showed that 8th graders are falling behind. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)
A poverty-controlled analysis of a new set of standardized test scores paints an even brighter picture of Alabama’s jump up national fourth grade achievement rankings while reflecting continuing challenges for eighth graders.
The original National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, released at the end of January, showed Alabama’s fourth grade math scores improved; fourth grade reading remained flat and eighth grade math and reading dropped slightly.
But thanks to stagnant national scores, Alabama moved from 38th in fourth grade reading in the nation in 2022 to 33rd in 2024, while it went from 39th to 31st in math over those two years. State leadership, however, has been comparing the 2024 rankings to the 2019 rankings, when the state was ranked 49th in fourth grade reading and 52nd in math.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our students, teachers and families are changing the narrative when it comes to education in Alabama,” Gov. Kay Ivey said at the State of the State Tuesday. “We are, in fact, not just a football state…Alabama is an education state.”
Alabama’s eighth grade scores remained near the bottom of the country. The state ranked 47th for eighth grade math achievement in 2022 and 48th last year. Reading improved slightly, from 49th in the nation in 2022 to 46th.
But an analysis of data by The Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization that provides data to help advance equity in the United States, found Alabama fourth graders moved even higher when adjusting for factors such as gender; age; race and ethnicity; receipt of free and reduced-price lunch, special education status and English language learner status.
As in the original numbers, outside of fourth grade math, Alabama’s NAEP scores in the Urban Institute analysis did not change significantly over 2022.
But under that analysis, the state’s fourth graders moved higher than they did in the original numbers. The Institute’s 2024 adjustment raised Alabama’s rank in fourth grade math from 31st in the original assessment to 12th when adjusting for poverty and other factors. The state’s ranking for fourth grade reading also jumped from 33rd to 19th.
Eighth grade rankings also improved, though they remained low compared to the rest of the country. The adjustments raised Alabama’s national ranking in eighth grade math from 48th to 45th and raised reading from 46th to 41st.
“When a state is closer to the bottom of the ranking, as Alabama is for the raw 2024 NAEP scores, it’s harder to move up,” Kristen Blagg, principal research associate for The Urban Institute, said Friday. “You can see that Alabama is much lower on raw eighth grade scores, so the rank does not increase by as much even with the adjustment.”
The Urban Institute says that demographically adjusting NAEP scores allows them to more accurately compare students’ scores nationwide. Blagg said in a phone interview Thursday that household income is directly correlated with student performance.
“So we know that that income is strongly correlated with performance, background household income,” she said. “So we definitely want to find some way to control for that.”
The number of students received free and reduced lunches is generally used to measure poverty in a district. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 60.2% of Alabama students were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches in the 2022-23 school year.
Blagg said Friday the adjusted rank does not mean that fourth graders in Alabama are necessarily better performers than the rest of the country. But she said since Alabama serves a larger population of students that receive free and reduced-priced lunches than a state like Massachusetts, Alabama’s rank rises.
“Nationally, states that have more low income students; have more English language learners or in other categories, they tend to be bumped up in this assessment,” she said, referencing fourth grade scores and ranks. “When we adjust for that, Alabama moves up because we basically leveled the playing field on those characteristics.”
Ivey praised fourth graders at the State of the State.
“It is because of the great work of teachers and communities … across this state that Alabama saw the largest jump in math scores in the country last year,” she said Tuesday.
For eighth graders, though, the state’s ranking remained at 45th for math from 2022 to 2024 and went from 40th to 41st in reading over those two years in the Urban Institute’s analysis.
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A statement from Ivey’s office highlighted the Literacy and Numeracy acts to further improve test scores.
“Through a continued focus on the Literacy and Numeracy Acts, the gains made in those earlier grades will carry on to 8th grade and throughout a student’s educational journey,” the statement read. “Additionally, the governor wants to see us keep putting resources towards supporting struggling readers past the third grade.”
State Superintendent Eric Mackey was unavailable for comment.
Looking forward
House Education Policy Chair Terri Collins, R-Decatur, said the performance of fourth graders made her optimistic about the 2026 assessment.
“We’re making such gains in fourth grade that I believe we’ll see those in a few years in eighth grade,” she said. “The scores were kind of similar for these fourth graders just last time, and they are now sixth graders. So those will be eighth graders next time.”
Collins also said that the NAEP scores are not the most accurate representation of education in Alabama because the fourth graders that took the test started kindergarten in 2020 with virtual learning.
“Alabama got our students back in the classroom as quickly as they could, and even though there were challenges, they were doing as much as they could,” she said. “Therefore, I think that has helped us make those gains, but maintaining those gains and continuing to move forward is what we want to see in Alabama.”
House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, said he wants to see more focus on middle schoolers in the state to improve their education and performance.
“We’ve allowed students to slide in middle school period, it’s not just the 8th graders,” he said. “We’ve stopped placing an emphasis on programs that’s going to help them enhance their academic performance. Because a kid can leave fifth grade going into sixth, seventh and eighth grade, without necessarily having a real strong foundation of reading.”
Daniels said that having more intervention for academically struggling middle schoolers to strengthen their foundation on fundamentals.
“It’ll be a stronger foundation for them when they become a freshman in high school. We can focus on trade and all these other things. That’s fine, but we cannot neglect the importance of going into higher education,” he said. “And if they don’t have a strong foundation, and we don’t build that foundation in middle school, then it’ll be very difficult.”
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