September 13, 2013<\/p>\n
JACKSON, Miss. \u2013 The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) today officially released letter grades for schools and districts, showing more districts earning an \u201cA\u201d and fewer districts earning an \u201cF\u201d for the third consecutive year.\u00a0 The Mississippi Board of Education is expected to approve the 2013 accountability results at its meeting today.<\/p>\n
The accountability model measures student performance on rigorous curricula and assessments.\u00a0 Schools and districts received performance classification letter grades of \u201cA,\u201d \u201cB,\u201d \u201cC,\u201d \u201cD\u201d and \u201cF.\u201d<\/p>\n
A total of 18 school districts earned an \u201cA\u201d this year, a significant increase from three districts in 2012. They were:<\/p>\n
Dr. Lynn J. House, interim state superintendent of education, said the main factor contributing to the rise in \u201cA\u201d districts was that graduation rates were added back to the accountability model, and for the first time, graduation rates applied to all districts. Previously, graduation rates only applied to the higher performing districts that fall under grades \u201cA\u201d and \u201cB.\u201d In 2012, at the request of the Accountability Task Force, the Mississippi Board of Education suspended the use of graduation rates in the accountability model to allow for the development of a fair and equitable system that held all districts and schools accountable.<\/p>\n
\u201cDistricts have worked diligently at keeping students in schools and helping them to graduate. The schools, districts and communities should be commended for their hard work and accomplishments around student achievement,\u201d House said.<\/p>\n
Schools earning the \u201cA\u201d status increased by 36 percent and the number of \u201cB\u201d schools increased slightly from last year, from 213 to 218 schools. The number of \u201cD\u201d schools decreased by nearly 20 percent and the number of \u201cC\u201d schools increased by around 6 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we are pleased to see the double-digit increase in the number of \u201cA\u201d schools this year, we know that more work must be done to help our lower performing schools,\u201d said Dr. Wayne Gann, chairman of the Board. \u201cWe must continue to provide resources and assistance to schools so that all students have the opportunity for higher achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Classifications included achievement and academic growth or improvement.\u00a0 Achievement is measured by the Quality of Distribution Index (QDI), with the minimum QDI zero and the maximum at 300.\u00a0\u00a0 The state\u2019s QDI is 168, up from 162 in 2012.\u00a0 Growth, on the other hand, is based on whether students demonstrate performance equal to or better than expected based on how they performed the previous school year. U.S. History and grades 5 and 8 Science were included in the achievement component this year.<\/p>\n
For the 2012-13 school year only, the Board approved two methods to calculate the graduation component of the accountability system. The first method used the five-year graduation rate\/High School Completion Index (HSCI) and the second method used the four-year graduation rate. The school\/district received the higher performance classification based on the results of the two methods. The High School Value (HSV) is the QDI added to the four-year graduation rate.<\/p>\n
The 2012-13 school year marks the last time that QDI, HSCI, HSV and five-year graduation rates will be used. A new accountability model has been proposed, and it is anticipated to be released for public comment following the Mississippi Board of Education meeting on Sept. 13.<\/p>\n
Schools in conservatorship also had gains. Of the 31 schools that MDE operates, 17 had increases in QDI, nine of which were double-digit gains, and 21 met their growth expectation. All of the schools in Oktibbeha County, the most recent takeover, made their growth expectations. Additionally, schools at-risk and those who received a school improvement grant also made improvements.<\/p>\n
The 2013 results reflect a five-year trend of increasing numbers of top-performing schools and decreasing numbers of lower performing schools. The letter grading system will provide communities a clear understanding of how their schools and districts are performing upon full implementation of the more rigorous college- and career-ready standards in 2014-15.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Media Contact:\u00a0<\/strong> Jean Cook, APR <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 13, 2013 JACKSON, Miss. \u2013 The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) today officially released letter grades for schools and districts, showing more districts earning an \u201cA\u201d and fewer districts earning an \u201cF\u201d for the third consecutive year.\u00a0 The Mississippi Board of Education is expected to approve the 2013 accountability results at its meeting today. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":2341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2328"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2459,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions\/2459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpdev01.mdek12.org\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPatrice Guilfoyle, APR
\nDirector of Communications
\n601-359-3706<\/p>\n
\nCommunications Specialist
\n601-359-3519<\/p>\n