The Alabama Board of Education is set to raise expectations for third graders by gradually increasing a benchmark on the state’s high-stakes reading test.
Currently, educators decide whether or not a third grader is reading sufficiently and can move on to the fourth grade based on a test. Leaders want to move the test’s cut score up this year, then again in 2026.
State Superintendent Eric Mackey said he’s talked with school officials, board members and the governor about the topic, and recommends moving the cut score from 435 to 444 this school year and then to 454 by spring 2027.
“I think that most people want to move up,” he said. “Maybe everybody wants to move up over time.”
A score of 473 means a third grader is reading on grade level, but statisticians recommended the 435 cut score – technically two standard errors below 473 – because the test is new.
After spring 2024 reading test results showed 91% of students reached the benchmark the board set last year, some board members questioned whether they set the bar too low, ultimately sending too many third graders without strong reading skills into the fourth grade.
There are few supports for fourth grade students who struggle to read, Mackey said, and students continue to get further behind if they can’t read well by fourth grade.
State lawmakers turned down the board’s request for $20 million to support struggling readers in fourth grade this year, but they’ll be back at the table for the 2026 fiscal year budget. Education officials plan to ask for $52 million for reading interventions and aid for the same group of students.
Board member Yvette Richardson said school officials are concerned about how to increase student achievement while also dealing with fewer resources.
“One brought to my attention we’ve had the [federal] ESSER funds where we’ve been able to do after school tutoring and additional programming, bringing in the interventionists,” she said. “Now that those monies are gone, we may not have those resources.” Richardson asked what kind of support they can offer school officials to bring third grade scores up.
“Those are tough questions,” Mackey said, adding that school officials are reaching out to ask for help from the state department to keep some of those reading intervention programs in place, but the department has no money in the budget to help local schools.
During an August meeting, assessment expert Juan D’Brot addressed the board about what to consider in setting a new score.
“The question that you have to weigh is: What’s the greater risk,” D’Brot told board members. “Promoting students that should have been held back or holding back students that should have been promoted?”
On Thursday, Mackey told board members that if the 444 score had been in effect this past spring, just under 14% of students would have been at risk of retention, which is what he expected with the 435 cut score.
Third graders who scored 435 or above on the 2024 reading test could move into the fourth grade under the law’s requirements. Those who scored below 435 were given the chance to attend summer reading camp to improve their skills and could then take the test again.
Mackey told the board in August that of the original 4,800 third graders that didn’t reach the 435 score, after summer interventions and retesting, about 3,500, or 6.5%, of students were determined to be reading below grade level.
Schools have until Sept. 16 to submit final data, but preliminary data showed 1,832 third graders were retained in third grade because of reading deficits. That same data showed 900 students were either promoted using a portfolio of work or because the student met one of a number of “good cause” exemptions.
The board will vote on whether to set the new series of cut scores during their Oct. 10 meeting.
