The latest accountability grades were a modest step back for Mississippi’s public schools.
The results don’t discount, however, a growing national perception that the state has generally been on the right track in raising the academic skills of its children.
According to the Mississippi Department of Education’s annual report card, a smaller majority of school districts and individual schools are successfully educating their students.
This year, 80% of schools and 87% of districts received a “C” or higher on the A-to-F grading scale. That’s down from the year before, when nearly 86% of schools and 94% of districts graded that high.
Your Tate Record is proud local schools in Senatobia and Tate County saw moderate increases.
Two observations, though, should temper the disappointment statewide.
First, last year saw a record high. Even though this year’s grades are down, they are still much better than when the state first started assigning grades, which are heavily based on the results from standardized tests that students take every spring.
In 2016, for example, only 62% of schools and districts received a “C” grade or higher, according to the state Department of Education.
In addition, Mississippi grades on a curve that emphasizes improvement from the year before, rather than just the raw scores. That works to the advantage of schools when their students start off as low performers. As scores improve it becomes tougher to show growth.
Grading on a curve is designed to take into account the socioeconomic variations in students’ backgrounds. It can also lead, though, to inflated grades.Last year’s record-high report card probably reflected that.
It would be incorrect, though, to conclude that Mississippi’s education progress over the past decade has been a mirage, the result of adjusting expectations until they produce the results about which the education bureaucrats and politicians can brag.
That might be true if there were not an objective measurement, the National Assessment of Education Progress, which does not grade on a curve. Mississippi’s meteoric rise on that test, particularly in the lower grades and among minority and low-income students, has been so remarkable that other states, including much wealthier ones, are copying some of Mississippi’s strategies.
Mississippi has not solved all its education problems but other states might do well to look at the national K-12 literacy crisis and see what they can learn. And we will know Mississippi gets credit for providing the nudge.
