State school officials say they are seeing a slight up-tick in student performance on the new Mississippi Assessment Program Test. State Superintendent Carey Wright talks about the results.
Students fared about the same or a little better on the Mississippi Assessment Program test than on a previous one, according to the state department of education. Students had taken the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test. Officials say students took the MAP test for the first time during the 2015-16 school year, which is supposed to be as difficult as PARCC. Reading and writing stayed flat from the year before. Math scores rose. State Superintendent Carey Wright says 66% of students performed at level 3 on the MAP test.
"Even better news is that we've got a whole lot of kids that are scoring at 4 and 5. So, 4 is proficient, 5 is advanced. So, that's the reason we separate the 4s and the 5s. The good news for that bulk of 3s is that those are children that have a tremendous amount of knowledge, but they're not quite at the proficiency level," said Wright.
Wright told the board of education some of the school districts with top performing students in math included Petal, Ocean Springs and Oxford Schools Districts. The bottom ten school districts for student performance in math included Holmes, Humphrey's and Clarksdale. Carey Wright.
"That's significant and we need to be thinking how can we help those schools. How can we help those children," said Wright.
Board members also voted to compromise on a MAP grading scale for schools and districts. MDE wanted a tougher standard than recommended. Under the compromise 90 and higher will be an "A." J.P. Beaudoin with MDE says after three years of different tests, MAP provides consistency.
"Today marks kind of a turning point in that. The assessment tools we use are common from year to year," said Beaudoin.
The grading scale will be available for public comment. Then a final vote is expected in October.
