Holding schools accountable for student performance seems smart, right.
The Mississippi Department of Education released its letter grades for schools and districts in South Mississippi Thursday, but urged caution in interpreting the results.
The 2015 Mississippi Statewide Accountability System assigns a performance rating of A, B, C, D, or F for each school and district based on a variety of metrics, such as graduation rates; growth in reading and math scores; participation rate of students and proficiency in reading, math, history and science.
The system, used for the first time in the 2013-14 school year, emphasizes student growth, particularly the lowest performing 25 percent of students.
For the most part, Central Mississippi school districts remained on par with previous accountability ratings, mostly due to a waiver. However, the waiver will not be in effect when the 2015-16 accountability report comes out in October.
The waiver was granted due to the transitioning to the new College and Career Readiness standards or Common Core.
Schools will not get a waiver for the 2015-16 results, even though the state is switching tests again. Districts and schools that score an F on the 2015-16 tests could be taken over by a state achievement district if they flunk again the next year.
The assessments are the result the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT2) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers, or PARCC. These are two vastly different tests.
The waiver enabled schools to continue implementing the new standards, but without the waivers, the accountability grades would create a fairly discouraging picture of public education in Mississippi. However, it is important to remember that our schools are improving as evidenced by the state 2015 NAEP assessment scores.
Mississippi was the only state to show a significant increase in 4th grade math, was one of 13 states to have a significant increase in 4th grade reading, and the only state to have increases in both.
The problem is that Mississippi is not at the national average yet, but the state is certainly moving in the right direction.
Setting a high bar for performance is critical. Our public education system is one of the most important sectors of the government and we should do anything possible to improve it.
We just have to be certain that this system is the best way to improve the Mississippi school system and take it out of the gutter in among the nation.
