Editing Alabama (section)

=== Primary and secondary education ===
[[File:Vestavia Hills High School.jpg|thumb|right|[[Vestavia Hills High School]] in the suburbs of Birmingham]]

Public primary and secondary education in Alabama is under the purview of the Alabama State Board of Education as well as local oversight by 67 county school boards and 60 city boards of education. Together, 1,496 individual schools provide education for 744,637 elementary and secondary students.<ref name="qfacts">{{cite web |url=http://www.alsde.edu/sec/comm/Pages/quickfacts-item.aspx?FilterField1=ID&FilterValue1=7 |title=Alabama Education Quick Facts 2012–13 |access-date=April 29, 2014 |format=PDF |archive-date=April 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429203418/http://www.alsde.edu/sec/comm/Pages/quickfacts-item.aspx?FilterField1=ID&FilterValue1=7 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Public school funding is appropriated through the Alabama Legislature through the Education Trust Fund. In FY 2006–2007, Alabama appropriated $3,775,163,578 for primary and secondary education. That represented an increase of $444,736,387 over the previous fiscal year. In 2007, more than 82 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward student proficiency under the National [[No Child Left Behind Act|No Child Left Behind]] law, using measures determined by the state of Alabama.

While Alabama's public education system has improved in recent decades, it lags behind in achievement compared to other states. According to U.S. Census data (2000), Alabama's high school graduation rate (75%) is the fourth lowest in the U.S. (after [[Kentucky]], [[Louisiana]] and Mississippi).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf |title=Educational Attainment : 2000 : Census 2000 Brief |website=Census.gov |access-date=December 29, 2016 |archive-date=April 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190416222303/https://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> The largest educational gains were among people with some college education but without degrees.<ref>[http://www.censusscope.org/us/s1/chart_education.html Education Statistics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513164857/http://www.censusscope.org/us/s1/chart_education.html |date=May 13, 2008}}. CensusScope.org</ref> According to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP), Alabama ranks 39 in reading and 40 in math among fourth-grade students in the rankings from 2022.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/overview/NP?cti=PgTab_ScoreComparisons&chort=1&sub=RED&sj=NP&fs=SubjectLabel&st=MN&year=2022R3&sg=Gender%3A%20Male%20vs.%20Female&sgv=Difference&ts=Single%20Year&tss=-2022R3&sfj=NP | title=National Data Explorer - ETS }}</ref>

Generally prohibited in the West at large, [[school corporal punishment]] is not unusual in Alabama, with 27,260 public school students [[paddle (spanking)|paddled]] at least one time, according to government data for the 2011–2012 school year.{{efn|This figure refers to only the number of students paddled, and does not refer to the number of instances of corporal punishment, which would be higher.}}<ref name="CORPUN_US_SCHOOL" /> The rate of school corporal punishment in Alabama is surpassed by only Mississippi and Arkansas.<ref name="CORPUN_US_SCHOOL">{{cite web |url=http://corpun.com/counuss.htm |title=Corporal punishment in US schools |publisher=[[World Corporal Punishment Research]] |last=Farrell |first=Colin |date=February 2016 |access-date=April 4, 2016 |archive-date=April 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160403071606/http://www.corpun.com/counuss.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>