Reading scores for Birmingham students dramatically rise: ACAP

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) – This year’s Alabama’s Comprehensive Assessment Program (ACAP) scores have been released. According to the state department of education, third-grade reading scores have improved from last year.

91 percent of third graders are considered to be on grade level for reading, up from last year’s 83 percent. State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey says this is the first year third-grade teachers have been able to give their students reading practice tests developed by the same people who create the ACAP test.

“Based on last year, it was 17% so we thought we would probably be looking at really 12,000 students who would be in danger of retention,” Mackey said. “We’ve done much better than I even expected us to do.”

Birmingham City Schools third graders followed a trend of the state and dramatically increased their reading scores. BCS Superintendent Dr. Mark Sullivan says in 2023, around 53 percent of third-grade students showed proficiency in reading and just one year later, that number is now 81 percent.

The district is proud of students and teachers and pleased with this year’s results. Sullivan says students are only in school 20 percent of the time from kindergarten through twelfth grade and community support is crucial to student success. Sullivan says it’s important to celebrate the students because they’ve done the work to improve their reading scores.

“It starts and ends with quality instruction and just supporting our teachers, making sure that all of our students are exposed to high level, rigorous instruction. I think that is the biggest bang for the buck,” Sullivan said. “Then also making sure that our students that the community is involved in supporting academic progress of our students.”

This year’s third graders are especially unique as their kindergarten experience was during COVID, so class was done online.

“COVID caused so many students across the country to backslide and so for these third graders to do so well on this test just really demonstrates their hard work and the power of concerted collaboration among partners across the state,” CEO of STAIR of Birmingham Karen Griner said.

Fred Stewart, principal at Hudson K-8 School, says his students could earn a reward for passing their ACAP test which gave students a little extra motivation.

“One may say it’s bribery but people like to receive things for being successful and that was one thing our team came up with that we wanted to do to make sure that students were excited about taking the test,” Stewart said.

Individual test scores will be sent home next week.

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