Education on top: Mountain Brook Schools see consistency in English language proficiency and ACT scores

Mountain Brook Schools earned an 88.6% proficiency rate in English Language Arts for grades 3-8 in the 2024 Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program, more than 30 percentage points above the statewide proficiency rate.

While many school systems across the state saw an increase in their proficiency ratings, Mountain Brook Schools saw little change from 2023 results.

Mountain Brook’s 2023 proficiency rate was 88.7%, only a tenth of a point different from this year’s results. Meanwhile, the state proficiency rate for 2024 is 56%, an increase from 51.9% in 2023.

The ACAP report noted that the biggest spike in proficiency came from third grade scores and attributed the growth to the full implementation of the Literacy Act passed in 2019. However, Mountain Brook actually saw their increases in fourth and fifth grades and a small decrease in third grade. 

Mountain Brook’s third grade ELA proficiency dropped from 93% to 92.8%, but the fourth grade rate rose from 91.6% to 93.1% and fifth grade went from 90.9% to 92.5%. The state rate for third grade sits at 62%, while fourth and fifth grade are at 57.4% and 62.4%, respectively.

Director of Instruction and Special Education Missy Brooks said the drop is no cause for concern.

“It's a different group of kids tested every year, so you’re never really going to get the same scores,” she said, “and those are so close that we would round that up and say 93%. If it were a 10-point difference, we would be very concerned.”

Assistant Director of Instruction Lanie Kent also said factors like the number of students tested each year can be an explanation for the fluctuation in scores, which doesn’t necessarily correlate to any real shift in student learning.

“Those scores, rather than just comparing third grade to third grade, we would compare last year's third grade to this year's fourth grade to see ‘How are we growing?’” said Brooks. “Because that's the bigger picture.”

Mountain Brook also saw just over a 1-point rise in science proficiency ratings, increasing to 84% from 2023’s 82.2%. Crestline Elementary saw nearly a 10% increase in their science score, clocking in at 84.7% compared to 75% in 2023. However, Brooks and Kent said it’s difficult to determine what could have been the catalyst.

“Science is only tested in fourth, sixth and eighth [grades], so it's hard to even gauge growth because there's a year missing in between those particular students,” Brooks said. “So that's really kind of a hard test to judge, but we do like that they went up a little bit.”

Kent noted that the state will be rolling out new science standards for the 2025-26 school year.

“That is something that is of interest,” Kent said. “This year is our science curriculum and materials adoption year. We have a committee who will present to the board a Mountain Brook curriculum framework. We’re going through this process for implementation next school year, so we're in the process of adopting our standards right now. And then teachers will begin, with parents, looking at resources and materials.”

Kent said those materials will be presented for adoption in the spring and may bring changes to the 2025 ACAP results.

“A big assessment, like ACAP, is really designed for us to look programmatically, big picture,” Brooks said. “It's kind of like a dipstick, if you want to think of it, you're dipping it in, seeing OK, how are we performing right in this moment on that day for this testing series?’ And so what we want to see is consistent or improving scores. When you're at 93%, it's hard to improve a whole lot more, because we know exactly who — every single student that wasn't in that 93%, we know exactly who they are and are giving them what they need to be successful.”

Mountain Brook’s trend of consistent testing results continued with the school system’s ACT scores.

Mountain Brook High School students improved almost half a point in the science section of the ACT, raising 2022’s average science score of 24.37 to 24.78 in 2023. They also made a small improvement in the reading section, increasing from an average score of 25.38 to 25.56. 

Mountain Brook’s composite average ACT score for 2023 was 25, noting growth from 24.85 the year prior. However, the school system averaged a score above 27 from 2016 to 2020. The highest possible score is 36.

Kent said this change from averaging students’ highest test scores is what caused the decrease. Brooks also noted that the scores they report now do not represent students who are able to superscore their ACT, meaning they can take the average of their best scores from each subject from multiple test attempts. The superscore is never lower than a single composite score.

“I would attribute it to the test changes,” Brooks said. “We used to just take the kids' highest scores when they were a senior. Now we can't. We don't do that anymore. We take the scores when they do the state assessment in April, all on the same day. So that's the score that we report, and it’s juniors.”

The state of Alabama’s average ACT score is 17.72 for 2023, a slight increase from the previous year’s score of 17.69. While Mountain Brook is well above the state average, Brooks said that doesn’t stop them from looking for improvement.

 “We have a really high standard here, and I think that comes from the community having just really high expectations,” she said. “But the expectation is that students will get to go to whatever college that they want. And so that's kind of our benchmark: ‘How many kids are getting into their college of choice?’ So that's something that we look at, and I would say the high school teachers really pour into the ACT scores, and they look and they make programmatic decisions.”

Mountain Brook also implemented a new ACT Prep class as an elective option for the 2024-25 school year to further help students improve their scores.

“We want to look holistically at children,” Kent said. “We want to make sure that they are engaging in the classroom for that deeper learning.”

Brooks also said it's about more than just education, it's about the atmosphere.

“We really wanted to be a welcoming environment, very hospitable,” she said. “We want them to feel safe and secure and know that they have somebody in that building that knows exactly who they are and can care for them.”

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Statewide Scores

Overall proficiency:

1. Mountain Brook: 83.5%

2. Vestavia Hills: 79.5%

3. Saraland: 77.3%

4. Orange Beach: 76.0%

5. Cullman: 72.9%

6. Homewood: 72.6%

7. Arab: 70.3%

8. Hoover: 70.2%

9. Trussville: 69.8%

10. Piedmont: 69.4%

English proficiency:

1. Mountain Brook: 88.6%

2. Vestavia Hills: 87.8%

3. Saraland: 84.9%

4. Cullman: 81.9%

5. Homewood: 81.2%

6. Orange Beach: 80.7%

7. Piedmont: 80.0%

8. Trussville: 79.4%

9. Hoover: 79.0%

10. Madison: 78.1%

Math proficiency:

1. Mountain Brook: 78.2%

2. Vestavia Hills: 70.8%

3. Saraland: 69.2%

4. Orange Beach: 68.9%

5. Arab: 66.7%

6. Homewood: 64.6%

7. Piedmont: 64.4%

8. Cullman: 63.0%

9. Hoover: 62.1%

10. Muscle Shoals: 61.8%

Science proficiency:

1. Mountain Brook: 84.0%

2. Orange Beach: 82.0%

3. Vestavia Hills: 80.5%

4. Saraland: 78.2%

5. Cullman: 75.7%

6. Hartselle: 75.0%

7. Homewood: 70.6%

8. Andalusia: 68.1%

9. Hoover: 67.8%

10. Trussville: 67.3%

SOURCE: Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama