The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) released the results of the 3rd grade reading test Wednesday.
According to the MDE’s website, the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) requires 3rd graders to pass a reading assessment to qualify for promotion to 4th grade. An amendment to the law in 2016 raised reading-level expectations starting in the 2018-19 school year, requiring 3rd graders to score at level 3 or higher on the reading portion of the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) English Language Arts (ELA) assessment.
Local Districts & Schools
Greenville Public Schools had 54% of third graders meet LBPA requirements; 46% of their students did not.
Akin Elementary School had 52.1% of students meet the requirement; 47.9% did not. Armstrong Elementary School had 76.9% of students meet the requirement; 23.1% did not. Boyd Elementary School had 53.6% of students meet the requirement; 46.4% did not. Stern Elementary School had 36.1% meet the requirement; 63.9% did not. Trigg Elementary School had 38.5% meet the requirement; 61.5% did not. Weddington Elementary School had 74.1% meet the requirement; 25.9% did not.
Hollandale School District’s Sanders Elementary School had 63% meet the requirement; 37% did not.
Leland School District’s Leland Elementary Accelerated School had 85.2% meet the requirement; 14.8% did not.
Western Line School District had 83.3% meet the requirement; 16.7% did not. O’Bannon Elementary had 82.1% meet the requirement; 17.9% did not. Riverside had 84.6% meet the requirement; 15.4% did not.
State Scores
In spring of 2017, there was a level 2 requirement for the students to pass the test.
Of 39,176 test takers, 36,057 (92.0%) of the test takers met the LBPA requirement and 3,119 (8%) of the test takers did not meet the requirement.
In spring of 2018, the level 2 requirement remained in effect. There was a total of 37,603 test takers, and 35,050 (93.2%) students met the requirement; 2,553 (6.8%) did not.
In spring of 2019, the level 3 requirement was initiated. There was a total 34,998 test takers, and 26,057 (74.5%) of the met the requirements and 8,941 (25.5%) did not.
According to MDE, more than half of schools (214) met or exceeded the state’s average pass rate of 74.5%, and 94 (22.8%) schools had at least 85% of students meet or exceed the passing score.
Among all school districts, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the higher bar on the test ranged from a high of 84.1% to a low of 32.4%.
A child will be granted two opportunities to retake the test before the start of the new school year.
According to LBPA, students who don’t pass the test must be retained in the 3rd grade unless the student meets the good cause exemptions specified in the law.
Exemptions apply to student with disabilities, students learning English or students who have been retained before.
The school districts make exemption decisions for students who do not qualify for one of the good cause exemptions for promotion to 4th grade.
“The state raised the passing score this year on the 3rd grade assessment so we knew that there would be a decline in this year's scores in comparison to last year’s,” said Lawrence Hudson, WLSD Superintendent. “In Western Line, our passing rate landed in the top one third of the state; however, we will use the data and continue to provide remediation to those 3rd graders who were not successful. We will not be satisfied until all of our students are successful.”
Rev. Jessie King, LSD superintendent, said the district has analyzed the data.
“We have determined the necessary instruction and supports to achieve 85.2% pass rate the first round of testing,” King said. “The students, parents, teachers and administrators intentionally use data to guide instruction and continue use data for continuous improvements of all students.”
Dr. Tracy Henshaw-Jackson, academic director for GPSD, said many educators anticipated a lower pass rate with the level 3 requirements.
“As with most districts we anticipated a drop,” Henshaw-Jackson said. “Data will always be used to drive instruction.”
