Autauga County Key

1
Introduction
Public Affairs Research Council of
Alabama Analysis of Alabama Reading Math Test
Results, Spring 2006, by School System White vs.
Black Students Introductory comments are on the
next slide, followed by county systems and then
city systems, with each group arranged in
alphabetical order.
2
INTRODUCTION TO PARCA COMPARISONS OF SPRING 2006
TEST RESULTS Poverty vs. Non-Poverty Students
Students were tested on the Alabama Reading and
Mathematics Test (ARMT), which is designed to
cover the content standards of instruction given
in public school classrooms within our state.
Student performance is reported in four
categories on the ARMT Level I Does not
meet academic content standards Level II
Partially meets academic content standards
Level III Meets academic content standards
proficient or grade-level performance Level
IV Exceeds academic content standards The
results are made available in terms of the
percentage of students tested who are rated in
each of the four levels of performance. We have
chosen in this report to present the percentage
of students scoring at Level IV only. A student
can be said to "pass" the ARMT by scoring at
either Level III or IV. Thus it is not
surprising that he combined percentage of those
scoring at both of these levels is high. In
every grade from 3 to 8, large majorities of
Alabama students score in the top two levels of
performance. In 2006, over 80 percent of
students tested in reading for grades 3 through 6
scored at Levels III and IV combined. In math
for grades 7 and 8, more than 60 percent of
students were rated in Levels III and IV. In the
remaining grades for both reading and math, the
combined percentages at Levels III and IV were
over 70 percent. These high percentages
reduce the variation among school systems and
therefore limit what can be learned by comparing
one school system's results to another's. They
also provide only a "pass-fail" picture of
performance. Focusing on the percentage of
students scoring at Level IV on the ARMT provides
a much better indicator of a school system's
success at moving students to higher levels of
performance. These results also are likely to be
a better indicator of how well Alabama students
compare with their peers in other states.
For purposes of the comparisons in this file,
students are divided into two groups based on
family income levels. "Poverty" students are
those who qualify for free and reduced-price
meals under federal regulations. These students
are from lower-income families. "Non-poverty"
students are those who do not qualify for the
free and reduced-price meals, but rather must pay
full price for meals at school. Studies often
show a strong relationship between poverty
background and test score results. This does not
indicate a systematic ability difference between
groups of students, but rather reflects
differences in the general circumstances of, and
opportunities available to, students of different
economic backgrounds, and a failure of schools to
overcome them. Alabama's public schools are
committed to a "no child left behind" philosophy,
in which the expectation is that ultimately all
students will succeed at high levels of
performance. This makes comparisons of the
performance gap between poverty and non-poverty
students (and other student sub-groups) an
important consideration. In the file,
county school systems are presented in
alphabetical order, and then city school systems
are presented in alphabetical order. The reader
should return to the introduction, then click on
the type of school system and scroll down the
list. The school system name is shown in the
upper-left corner of each slide. Test
results are shown for grades 3-8 in math ("M")
and then in reading ("R"), as indicated in the
first column ("3M" stands for 3rd grade math, and
so on). Results for non-poverty students are
shown on the left side of the table, and for
poverty students on the right side of the table.
The first column in each half of the table
shows the percentage of students tested who fall
in that category. Thus, in Autauga County 56 of
third graders tested in math were non-poverty
students, and 44 were poverty students. The two
categories do not always add to 100 because
socioeconomic information was not recorded for
some students, and because privacy rules call for
masking the results when too few students are
included in a grouping. The second column
in each half of the table shows the percentage of
students tested in the school system who scored
at Level IV, and the third column shows the
percentage of students tested statewide who
scored at Level IV. The fourth column shows the
difference, subtracting the state figure from the
system figure. This shows whether the school
system did better than, or worse than, the
statewide average for the group of students
compared. For example, 73.4 of Autauga County
non-poverty third graders scored at Level IV on
the math test, while 60.8 of non-poverty third
graders statewide were at Level IV. Autauga
outperformed the state in this category of
students by the difference, 12.6. (Note that
this is 12.6 percentage points of difference, not
a 12.6 percent difference.) On the other hand,
Autauga underperformed the state in terms of
third grade poverty student math scores, by 3.4
percentage points. The color-coding provides
a quick visual comparison of the size of
differences. Comparisons in which the system
exceeded the statewide average are shown in
green, and the dark green coloring indicates
comparisons in which the system was more than 10
percentage points better than the statewide
average. Comparisons in which the system
underperformed the statewide average are shown in
red, and the dark red coloring indicates
comparisons in which the system was more than 10
percentage points below the statewide average.
We considered any comparisons in which there was
a difference of 1.0 percentage point or less,
either plus or minus, to be "too close to call,"
and color-coded that comparison gray. By
using the color-coding, the reader can quickly
analyze a school system across grade levels,
within each of the categories of students, and
across the two categories of students. For
example, Autauga County outperformed the state in
every grade and subject comparison for
non-poverty students, and by more than 10
percentage points in half of the comparisons it
also outperformed the state in reading at every
grade level for poverty students but its results
for poverty students in math were mixed.
Looking at the Level IV percentages for
non-poverty versus poverty students on each test
and in every grade level, both for Autauga and
the whole state, one sees very large gaps in the
success rates for the two sub-groups of students.
Thus, in third grade math, the gap is 39
percentage points for Autauga County (73.4 -
34.5) and 32 percentage points for Alabama as a
whole. Obviously, a focus on reducing this gap
is called for. Are there school systems in
Alabama that do a particularly good job on
reading or math, at particular grade levels,
within either of these two student groups, and in
terms of the gap between them? In looking
through the results of the various school systems
on these tests, it becomes obvious that there
are. High-performing school systems obviously
are doing something right, and the practices that
make them successful ought to be copied, adapted,
or at least considered by others. The key to
school improvement in Alabama is for the
successful practices of high-performing school
systems to be transferred to those systems that
need to improve. The first step in bringing
about this transfer is to organize test-score
information so that the high-performing schools
at every level can be identified. This is what we
have tried to do in the following comparisons.
Our purpose is not to label any school system,
but to assist those who want to improve and
thereby to make a contribution toward raising the
level of student performance throughout the state.
3
Autauga County
4
Baldwin County
5
Barbour County
6
Bibb County
7
Blount County
8
Bullock County
9
Butler County
10
Calhoun County
11
Chambers County
12
Cherokee County
13
Chilton County
14
Choctaw County
15
Clarke County
16
Clay County
17
Cleburne County
18
Coffee County
19
Colbert County
20
Conecuh County
21
Coosa County
22
Covington County
23
Crenshaw County
24
Cullman County
25
Dale County
26
Dallas County
27
Dekalb County
28
Elmore County
29
Escambia County
30
Etowah County
31
Fayette County
32
Franklin County
33
Geneva County
34
Greene County
35
Hale County
36
Henry County
37
Houston County
38
Jackson County
39
Jefferson County
40
Lamar County
41
Lauderdale County
42
Lawrence County
43
Lee County
44
Limestone County
45
Lowndes County
46
Macon County
47
Madison County
48
Marengo County
49
Marion County
50
Marshall County
51
Mobile County
52
Monroe County
53
Montgomery County
54
Morgan County
55
Perry County
56
Pickens County
57
Pike County
58
Randolph County
59
Russell County
60
St. Clair County
61
Shelby County
62
Sumter County
63
Talladega County
64
Tallapoosa County
65
Tuscaloosa County
66
Walker County
67
Washington County
68
Wilcox County
69
Winston County
70
Albertville
71
Alexander City
72
Andalusia
73
Anniston
74
Arab
75
Athens
76
Attalla
77
Auburn
78
Bessemer
79
Birmingham
80
Boaz
81
Brewton
82
Cullman (City)
83
Daleville
84
Decatur
85
Demopolis
86
Dothan
87
Elba
88
Enterprise
89
Eufaula
90
Fairfield
91
Florence
92
Fort Payne
93
Gadsden
94
Geneva (City)
95
Guntersville
96
Haleyville
97
Hartselle
98
Homewood
99
Hoover
100
Huntsville
101
Jacksonville
102
Jasper
103
Lanett
104
Leeds
105
Linden
106
Madison (City)
107
Midfield
108
Mountain Brook
109
Muscle Shoals
110
Oneonta
111
Opelika
112
Opp
113
Oxford
114
Ozark
115
Pell City
116
Phenix City
117
Piedmont
118
Roanoke
119
Russellville
120
Scottsboro
121
Selma
122
Sheffield
123
Sylacauga
124
Talladega (City)
125
Tallassee
126
Tarrant City
127
Thomasville
128
Troy
129
Trussville
130
Tuscaloosa (City)
131
Tuscumbia
132
Vestavia Hills
133
Winfield