Alabama Accountability Act: Does changing schools improve student achievement?
Montgomery Advertiser – Sept. 11
The Alabama Accountability Act was created to provide school choice to impoverished students, some of whom attend so-called “failing” schools. However, a recent independent report questions if switching schools improves student achievement. The report also found that the program, which gives scholarships that allow public school students to transfer to private schools, is not enough to overcome the adverse effects of poverty on a student and that the state of Alabama, as a whole, has to improve academic achievement as measured by standardized tests.The data review, conducted by the University of Alabama’s Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), found that students who received a scholarship to change schools did not show significant improvement on standardized test scores and that “on the ACT Aspire, students were more likely to remain in a nonproficient category than to improve.”
Local emergency responders honor those who died on 9/11
Tuscaloosa News – Sept. 12
Members of the Tuscaloosa area emergency services honored those fallen heroes Tuesday morning with the 9-11 Memorial Stair Climb in Coleman Coliseum on the campus of the University of Alabama. They climbed a total of 2,200 steps up and 2,200 steps down to commemorate the 110 flights of stairs inside the towers of the World Trade Center. University of Alabama Police Officer Rachel Grooms set up the course that snaked up and down the north and south sides of the arena.
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Sept. 11
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – Sept. 11
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – Sept. 11
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Sept. 11
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Sept. 11
Name droppers: Davis scholars earn accolades
Davis (California) Enterprise – Sept. 11
David Brent Spight of Davis has received a doctorate of education from University of Alabama. Spight received his degree along with over 5,000 graduates during the spring 2018 commencement in early May.