MOBILE, Alabama – Mobile County Public Schools released results from the district’s first round of ACT Aspire testing, showing students in grades 3 through 8 scored below new state benchmarks in reading and math but outperformed expectations in English.
The ACT Aspire exam, administered statewide for the first time last spring, replaced the previous Alabama Reading and Math Test with a more rigorous assessment aligned to Alabama’s College and Career Ready standards. Across all tested grades, Mobile County students scored below the newly established reading and math benchmarks, though their math performance came closer to target levels than their reading scores. District scores in both subjects were roughly in line with national averages for the exam.
English proved to be the bright spot in the results. Mobile County students in every tested grade scored above the readiness benchmark on the optional English assessment, which was given at some schools within the district in addition to the required reading and math sections.
Schools Superintendent Martha Peek cautioned against reading too much into the first-year results, noting the new Aspire test format cannot be directly compared to scores from the previous ARMT exam. She described the inaugural testing round as “a trial run” that should serve mainly as a baseline for future spring assessments rather than a definitive measure of student achievement.
The district’s release followed the Alabama Department of Education’s own statewide results, published the previous week, which sorted student performance into four categories: exceeding, ready, close and in need of support. Mobile County’s local report focused on average scores in the middle "ready" and "close" ranges, without breaking out the percentage of students who fell into the top "exceeding" or bottom "in need of support" categories. District officials also opted not to present results as percentages, the format used in the state’s report, arguing that percentages would be misleading given the lack of historical comparison data from prior years.
Roughly 26,000 Mobile County students sat for the reading and math portions of the exam, with the district notable statewide as the only system to administer the entire test battery on computers rather than paper. An additional 20,000 students took the optional English assessment.
District officials said they are still in the early stages of analyzing the new data and identifying which schools or grade levels may need additional instructional support heading into the next testing cycle. Superintendent Peek indicated that more detailed guidance for teachers and campus administrators would follow as officials continue reviewing the results in the coming months.