More than 60 school districts in Mississippi had a 95% or higher passing rate on the third grade reading assessment this year.
All third-grade students in Mississippi must pass the reading assessment — which is part of the broader year-end English-Language Arts exam for third grade — before entering the fourth grade. MDE released the state, school and district results of the third grade reading assessment to the public on Monday.
MDE implemented the reading assessment for the 2014-15 school year to help ensure student literacy. The Legislature then passed the “Literacy-Based Promotion Act” mandating that all third-grade students must pass the state proficiency in reading in order to advance to the fourth grade. Since the state-mandated test implementation, scores have gradually improved on a state-wide level.
This year, 93.2 percent of third graders in Mississippi passed, which is 1.2 percent higher than in 2017 and 6 percent higher than in 2016.
Lowndes County School District scored 1.5 percent higher than the state average passing rate while Columbus Municipal School District and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District scored lower than the state average. CMSD had a passing rate of 87.8 percent, LCSD had 94.7 percent and SOCSD scored 90.9 percent passing rate.
In Mississippi, there are 62 school districts and nearly 200 schools that had at least 95 percent of students pass this year’s assessment. CMSD had one school, Fairview Elementary, with a 100 percent passing rate, LCSD had two schools with at least 95 percent passing rate and SOCSD had one with at least 95 percent of students passing.
MDE recognized the top ten performing districts based on the this year’s reading assessment results, which included Aberdeen School District and Monroe County School District.
The MDE results for the state assessment are available to view online at http://mdereports.mdek12.org/report1/r2017-18.aspx
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