The release of school district Report Cards for the 2017-18 school year was due to be released Thursday. However, it was delayed after the state Board of Education voted to delay approving the results until October.
In a press release sent Thursday morning, Mississippi Department of Education states the Report Card data made available to schools and media outlets should be considered “unofficial” results until the state board approved the data.
“Statewide accountability data sent under embargo to school district superintendents and members of the media on Sept. 17 are unofficial. The embargo was set to lift at noon today. However, because the SBE did not approve the grades, they are not the official grades of school and district performance. School districts and members of the media are advised to wait until October to report SBE-approved grades,” the statement sent by MDE states.
The Department of Education did not provide an explanation for why the board felt the scores should be withheld.
Patrice Guilfoyle, communications director for MDE, said the board wanted more time to review the accountability model before approving the scores.
“They just wanted more information on the accountability scores,” she said.
Also, on Thursday, the board met to discuss its previous decision to reset the baseline accountability scores, which are the number of points schools and districts must earn for each letter grade, A-F.
“The SBE voted in August to establish a temporary rule to reset the baseline scores for establishing accountability grades for schools that have a 12th grade. The reset would address the lack of comparability to growth scores in prior years. The SBE will decide today whether to make this temporary rule permanent,” MDE said via press release.
However, Guilfoyle said the reset was a separate matter and not related to the delay. She said the board was not concerned with the accuracy of that data or the model used to generate the scores.
“They approved the methodology to get it,” she said. “They just wanted more time to look at it.”
The state board previously voted to reset the baseline scores for the 2017-18 school year on Aug. 17, 2017. MDE stated the reason for the reset was that two years of Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) data had been generated, so the baseline needed to be reset to accurately reflect improvement moving forward.
The 2015-16 school year was the first year MDE used the MAAP tests. The cut scores for grades were originally set in July 2016. Prior to MAP, students in Mississippi used the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exam to generate accountability grades for schools and districts.
PARCC was used to generate accountability data in Mississippi schools from 2010 – 2015. Mississippi joined the PARCC consortium in 2010 when the state adopted the Common Core curriculum. However, for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school year, the state issued voluntary waivers to school districts with permission from the U.S. Department of Education, which allowed districts to choose either their current year’s score or the previous year’s score.
A report on MDEs accountability standards filed Aug. 11, 2015 by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance and Expenditure Review (PEER), found the waivers, along with MDE’s treatment of growth and performance data, did not accurately reflect the school’s performance.
State Superintendent Cary Wright denied the findings in the PEER report, saying the committee “misled the public.”
“The PEER Committee report misled the public on the reliability and validity of MDE’s accountability model, and I want to reassure parents and communities that the agency involved Mississippi school and district leaders as well as national assessment and accountability experts in the development of this system. The recommendations in the PEER report are based on opinion and not scientific research or best practice,” Wright said in an MDE press release Aug. 21, 2015.
In January 2015, the state Board of Education voted to leave the PARCC consortium due to problems with contract negotiations. They approved an emergency measure to allow NCS Pearson Inc. to issue the PARCC test one more year.
The state board adopted MAAP in 2016, which has been used for accountability testing since.
Newton County’s districts
Although unofficial, the 2017-18 Report Cards show progress for all three public school districts in Newton County.
Union Public School District, which was rated B for the 2016-17 school year, maintained its B-rating. However, the district showed growth in all four subject areas – English, math, science and history.
Newton County School District, which was rated an A district in 2016-17, fell to a B in the 2017-18 Report Cards. However, the district showed growth in all subject areas. Graduation rates fell from 91 percent to 85.9 percent.
Newton Municipal School District retained its C-rating in the 2017-18 Report Cards. However, MDE previously announced NMSD showed the most growth in Math proficiency out of any school district in the state. The district also showed growth in reading, but science and history proficiencies declined over 2016-17 levels. The graduation rate dropped from 86.8 percent to 77.6 percent.
