Mississippi education -State academic tests see some slight upticks
JACKSON — Mississippi education officials say more than half of Mississippi’s students scored in the top two categories on the state’s standardized tests this year.The Mississippi Department of Education released results of the tests Friday. The tests were taken during the past school year by all third- to eighth-grade students and many high school students.
Third- to eighth-graders take the Mississippi Curriculum Test, Second Edition, in math and language arts. That test was revamped during the 2007-08 school year in order to make it more difficult and more in line with national norms.
The MDE says the number of students scoring at least proficient on the MCT-2 test rose on every test except fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade math and fifth-grade language, which each had declines of less than a percentage point.
More than half of the students scored proficient or advanced on the MCT2 language arts tests, state Superintendent of Education Tom Burnham said in a news release. Proficiency levels increased in every grade but fifth, where the levels remained flat, he said.
Those increases show “our efforts with literacy and our emphasis on more rigorous standards are having a positive effect,” he said. “These results demonstrate that students will rise to our level of expectation. As we continue to expect more from our children, our children will excel.”
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