This article presents the state education finance and governance profile of Alabama. The state is home to 1,538 public schools distributed across 67 county school systems and 64 city school systems. State spending is allocated via two separate budgets, "the general fund" for all noneducation related expenditures and the Education Trust Fund (ETF) for all education-related expenditures. Revenue for the ETF is mostly raised through a statewide income tax and a 4% sales tax. The grand total of the ETF budget for fiscal year 2007 was 5.85 billion dollars, two thirds of which was consumed by the K-12 foundation program. Public K-12 schools and 2-year colleges are governed by an elected state board of education. Board members are elected from eight single-member districts in evenly staggered terms of 4 years. The K-12 chief state schools officer is the state superintendent of education, who serves at the pleasure of the state school board. The state faces several key policy challenges in improving schools: (1) educational funding; (2) lack of a formal alignment between the state's secondary schools and postsecondary institutions; (3) poor rankings in two key "chance for success" criteria (high school graduation and math proficiency); and (4) lack of post-high school longitudinal data collection and research. (Contains 1 table and 1 footnote.)