The report by NICHE placed Madison City Schools No.1 out of 138 school districts statewide, and 57th best of 10,571 school systems nationwide.
Individual schools in Madison also fared well in the NICHE report, with all in the top tier.
The seven elementary schools in Madison City all landed in the top 10 of the school rankings. Mill Creek at #3; Horizon, #4; Heritage, #5; Columbia, #6; Midtown, #8; Madison, #9; and Rainbow #10. That's out of 741 elementary schools ranked statewide.
Discovery Middle placed 1st and Liberty 5th out of 397 middle schools ranked statewide. James Clemens placed 6th and Bob Jones 9th out of 365 Alabama high schools.
Madison City Schools Superintendent Dr. Ed Nichols said being in the top tier in every category is a "true community effort" that everyone can be proud of for achieving.
"Certainly, administrators, teachers, and support staff in our schools deserve much of the credit. They are where the learning happens every day. It is also a reflection of the great parents and kids we have in the district and an administrative team and board that continuously looks for ways to improve."
NICHE says it bases its annual evaluations using a variety of criteria including state test scores, college readiness, graduation rates, SAT/ACT scores, teacher quality, public school and district ratings and opinions from parents and students. Posted 9-27-22.
In this Thanksgiving season, let me express how thankful I am for our students, teachers and staff, administrators, board members, and parents for the role they play in making our school system great. I certainly appreciate the support we receive from our community and community leaders that allows us to provide a high-quality education for the children of Madison. I am in classrooms every week and see the outstanding things that are happening in each of our schools. While we are pleased by this outcome, we celebrate this with the understanding that a letter grade is only a symbol. The most accurate measure of our effectiveness is how well we are preparing our kids for their future. So we accept this with a commitment that we will never become complacent where we are. We will constantly seek ways to improve.
The state report cards are a measure of academic achievement, academic growth, chronic absenteeism, and progress in EL proficiency for our elementary and middle schools. For the high schools, the state report cards are a measure of academic achievement, academic growth, graduation rate, college and career readiness, chronic absenteeism, and progress in EL proficiency.
The straight-A performance by our schools affirms that no matter where one lives in Madison, they are zoned for a quality school.
