School Accountability

The State Board of Education has voted to delay consideration of school and district accountability ratings until its October meeting. Some board members expressed a desire to spend more time reviewing the ratings and considering the numerous public comments they received. Many of the public comments noted reservations about the annual use of percentile rankings to […]

If you have a child in kindergarten through third grade, you will want to attend an important meeting hosted by the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE). In a series of regional meetings, MDE will share information and strategies to help parents prepare their children for the new, higher standards that third-grade students must meet to

The State Board of Education is considering resetting cut scores, once again, which could affect the accountability rating for your high school. The MDE is required to accept public comments on any proposed change in the accountability system, including changes to cut scores. Comments will be shared with the State Board of Education prior to accountability ratings being adopted

2018 state test results are out, and the news is good! Students showed improvement in every grade and subject area, with more students scoring in the top three proficiency levels and fewer scoring in levels one and two. You can see how your school and district fared here. Perhaps the best news of all is that school districts

Mississippi’s public school teachers are amazing, and our most recent national test scores prove it! Over the last decade, Mississippi students have outpaced the nation in improvement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the “Nation’s Report Card.” But the really great news comes when we dig a little deeper. When test scores are disaggregated,

A couple of weeks ago, educators who work in K-1 and K-2 schools gathered at a Mississippi Association of School Administrators conference to discuss the challenges surrounding how lower elementary schools are rated. They shared their frustrations about the current system, which they say often yields: Low teacher morale Strained relationships with feeder schools Unfair distribution

Great things are happening in Mississippi classrooms! That’s the takeaway from the school and district ratings released today by the Mississippi Board of Education. Students demonstrated higher achievement in math, reading, science, and history, along with improvements in ACT scores and graduation rates. See the ratings for schools and school districts here. Accountability rating systems are not

If your lower elementary school’s rating is not what you think it should be, I might have an explanation for you: its rating is based on test scores from another school. The feds require that all schools be rated. Mississippi’s state accountability testing begins in grade three. That creates a challenge when it comes to rating lower elementary

Diploma options for children with special needs are changing, and you have an opportunity to weigh in on how those changes unfold. Parents and teachers of students with special needs can submit comments to the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) by August 31 on its plan to change the diploma options available to students with disabilities.

State Test Scores Released Today the Mississippi Board of Education voted on an amended recommendation from MDE to: • Reestablish the accountability rating baseline (cut) scores for 2016-2017 using the same percentile ranking that was used to determine school and district ratings (letter grades) last year• Publish two ratings for each school and district – one based