This week, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) made the 2017-2018 accountability scores public, after delaying the public release on September 20. Each year, Mississippi schools and districts are rated using an A-F scale, just like children receive a grade A, B, C, D, or F on a report card. To understand the accountability system…
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Jackson, MS—Today, Mississippi First released Understanding District and State Testing in Mississippi. This report uses field research on testing practices in four diverse Mississippi school districts to determine how many tests Mississippi students take and how much time they spend taking those tests. It also describes common school district testing practices, such as how testing…
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Today, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board received a $15M grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) through the Expanding Opportunities Through Quality Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities (CSP State Entities program). ED selected 9 state entities out of 22 state applicants to receive a total of $144.7M in funding. The Authorizer…
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Today, the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board approved the fifth public charter school for the state: Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School. The school is set to open in the fall of 2018 in Clarksdale, Miss., and at full enrollment will serve students in grades K-8. In the fall of 2018, the school will enroll 150…
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This post is the last in our three-part series on cut scores. Read Part 1 (A-F system) and Part 2 (Setting Cut Scores) before this if you need more background knowledge to understand this post. Proposals for Changing the Cut Scores There have been three proposals for how to change cut scores: MDE’s original recommendation,…
Read MoreThis blog post is Part 2. Read Part 1 here: https://www.mississippifirst.org/blog/understanding-re-setting-cut-scores-mississippis-accountability-system-part-1/. Setting Cut Scores The process of setting cut scores is in part technical and in part political. First, staff at the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) compile all the scores from schools and districts and rank each from highest to lowest. (Schools must be grouped…
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