After three cracks at the state mandated third grade reading test, local districts now have passed around 90 percent of their students on to the fourth grade.
The results from the final retake of the test were released Tuesday by the state Department of Education. This is the first year of implementation for the Literacy Based Promotion Act, which requires all third graders pass a 50-question, computer-based reading test before allowed to move to the fourth grade.
Ninety-two percent of third graders in the Columbus Municipal School District passed the test. Out of 364 students, 25 were held back from the fourth grade.
The district had eight third graders who failed the test exempted for good cause, which includes students for whom English is a second language and students with learning disabilities.
In the Lowndes County School District, more than 95 percent of the district’s 379 third graders passed — that rate is among the highest scoring districts in the state. Nine third graders were held back from the fourth grade, according to LCSD assistant superintendent Dr. Robin Ballard.
The district had 11 students exempted for good cause, Ballard said.
The Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District had 89 percent of their third graders pass the test after the final attempt. Eleven students were exempted for good cause and between 10 and 12 students were held back in third grade, according to SOCSD assistant superintendent Dr. Jody Woodrum.
SOCSD faces the added challenge of having recently consolidated, which added two new elementary schools to the district. The former Starkville School District had 85 percent of its 355 third graders pass the initial test.
Educators resist retention
Public school districts are mandated to follow the Literacy Based Promotion Act, but they are not required to be happy with it.
“It really didn’t help us identify the students who were struggling,” Woodrum said.
Of the 55 students who failed the initial test in Starkville, 52 had been identified and enrolled in the districts response to intervention process, in which students are given extra assistance to help with literacy and vocabulary. Woodrum said the students in the response to intervention program were already being monitored, and that research suggests holding a kid back for literacy past the first grade can have a negative result. She believes a system in which the teachers and parents could decide whether promotion or retention was better for a child on an individual basis would be better than the line-in-the-sand model used in Mississippi.
Still, she said the test had forced her district to implement some new strategies that she believes will be effective. SOCSD is now giving children a “fluency” grade and a “strong vocabulary” grade to monitor their progress.
In Lowndes County, Ballard echoed those sentiments. She said the students who had failed in their district had also been identified via a response to intervention program. She also wanted to have the flexibility for districts to decide which students are retained or promoted.
“In my experience, you have to take each child on an individual basis,” Ballard said.
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