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Education chief cites NAEP gains, flags budget problem with principal bonuses tied to federal eligibility rule
Summary
State education official reported strong gains on NAEP and state test recovery metrics but warned of an unanticipated budget shortfall for Principal Leadership Mentoring Act stipends after a federal change made more school districts eligible for an additional stipend tied to community eligibility provisions.
Dr. Mackey, the State Department of Education official who presented to the committee, highlighted recent student achievement gains and raised a budgetary concern about principal and assistant principal bonuses under the Principal Leadership Mentoring Act.
Mackey said Alabama ranked among the top states for recovery following the pandemic — citing both NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) results and an independent education‑recovery scorecard — and noted the state is “number 2 in reading growth” and “number 1 in math growth” since 2019. He summarized third‑grade reading assessments, summer reading camp outcomes and how the department will track students promoted under good‑cause exemptions. He also flagged concerning outliers in middle‑school math (particularly a high share of seventh graders in the lowest performance band) and said the department will examine alignment and instruction in those grades.
Mackey then described an unexpected fiscal issue with the Principal Leadership Mentoring Act. The law provides up to $10,000 for principals and up to $5,000 for assistant principals, plus supplemental amounts for administrators in high‑need schools tied to the federal community eligibility provision (CEP). Federal rule changes lowered the CEP district threshold (from 40% to 25%), which expanded the number of qualifying districts and greatly increased the number of principals eligible for the additional stipend. Mackey said the governor’s supplemental budget includes funds to cover the immediate shortfall this year, but he called the expanded eligibility “not what our intent was” and said the department will need to return with proposals to address the structural funding issue.
Committee members asked about local verification and audits; Mackey said local districts certify completion of required activities and the department will perform random audits and reimburse districts after completion. Members discussed whether the statutory language should be adjusted to tie eligibility more closely to school‑level poverty measures rather than district‑level CEP status.
Mackey closed by thanking legislators for investments and promising to return with additional monitoring data on promoted third graders.
