Contextualizing Mississippi’s 2024 NAEP Scores
By Grace Breazeale | Director of Research and K-12 Policy This week, the National Center for Education Statistics released 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment results, commonly referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card.” The assessment is administered across the nation every two years in grades 4 and 8. Unlike state-specific standardized tests, the NAEP […]
Literacy Series: Factors Related to Post-Pandemic Improvement
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a two-part series on third grade literacy achievement. You can find the first part here. *** By Grace Breazeale | Director of Research and K-12 Policy In the first part of this series, we explored the effectiveness of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) across Mississippi school districts, as well […]
Literacy Series: Pre-Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Literacy Achievement in Mississippi
Editor’s Note: This is the first part of a two-part series on the Literacy-Based Promotion Act. *** By Grace Breazeale | Director of Research and K-12 Policy Between 2013 and 2019, fourth grade reading scores on the nationwide NAEP test increased by ten points in Mississippi–a larger increase than in any other state during this time […]
Raising Student Achievement in Mississippi’s Highest Need Districts
By Toren Ballard For the second year in a row, results from the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) exams suggest that Mississippi is continuing to defy nationwide trends in educational achievement: proficiency levels across all subjects were at all-time highs in 2023, and Mississippi is now one of just two states nationwide to have exceeded its pre-pandemic proficiency […]
The Truth About Mississippi’s NAEP Gains
Editor’s Note: This blog post is in response to a column appearing in the LA Times titled “How Mississippi gamed its national reading test scores to produce ‘miracle gains.‘” We’re not going to link to it because we don’t believe it is worth your clicks; however, feel free to Google. *** This morning, I was […]
Trends in High School Graduation and Postsecondary Enrollment Rates
Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of an ongoing series of posts dedicated to K-12 education policy in Mississippi. *** By Grace Breazeale | Director of Research and K-12 Policy Mississippi’s high school graduation rate has steadily risen over the past five years, which would typically be a cause for celebration. But in this case, […]
Ensuring the Effectiveness of Social-Emotional Learning
Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of an ongoing series of posts dedicated to K-12 education policy in Mississippi. *** By Grace Breazeale | Director of Research and K-12 Policy In early 2021, the Mississippi Department of Education released its first-ever social-emotional learning (SEL) standards. The release of these standards was a positive step towards increasing […]
Squaring the Circle: Learning Loss and Rising District Grades
By Toren Ballard This fall, Mississippians received two widely divergent narratives about the state of public education post-COVID: On September 29, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) released school and district accountability grades for the 2021-2022 school year, showing unprecedented improvement: 87% of districts were rated “C” or higher, up from 70% in 2019, the last time MDE […]
Statement on American History in Public Schools
By Rachel Canter | Executive Director When I was a first year teacher, I asked my students a basic question about American history—“Why do we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday every year?”—as a way of introducing Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Without exception, the answer I got from every class was that […]
Principles for Assessing Curriculum-Related Legislation
Today, we released a statement on American history from our Executive Director, Rachel Canter. In partnership with that statement, Mississippi First has developed the following principles for assessing curriculum-related legislation. These principles are based on our organizational values. We believe these principles are commonsense. In a recent nationwide poll of parents, large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats agreed […]