Mississippi schoolchildren learned less as they stayed out of the classroom during the pandemic. The Mississippi Department of Education released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2022 this morning. The scores of Mississippi's fourth and eighth graders fell across the board from 2019 to 2022.
The MDE press release bragged about Mississippi's ten year record of improvement on the NAEP but these are the relevant statistics.
The one bright spot was reading as the third-grade reading-gate exam did its job. Gone are the days of moving on through school unable to read and write. The MDE press release stated:
Mississippi maintained its historic gains in 4th grade reading on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), while scores nationally dropped in all four NAEP subjects and grades.
The 2022 NAEP results provide the first national measure of student learning since the start of the pandemic. Known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP measures student performance in 4th and 8th grade reading and math in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The 2022 results show Mississippi 4th graders scored at the national average in both reading and math. Mississippi’s economically disadvantaged 4th graders achieved higher scores in reading and math than their peers nationally and in the South. This achievement holds steady among black, white and Hispanic students living in poverty.
“The 2022 NAEP scores prove the resilience of Mississippi students and the ability of Mississippi educators to provide high-quality instruction despite the challenges of the pandemic,” said Dr. Kim Benton, state superintendent of education, interim. “While our state’s scores are encouraging, they also underscore the need to press forward to ensure all students achieve proficiency. In particular, we have more work to do in 8th grade reading and math to bring student performance up to the national average and then continue to improve.”
In 8th grade, Mississippi scores dropped three points in reading and eight points in math, which matches the decline nationally in both subjects. Mississippi 4th graders dropped seven points in math, which is statistically equivalent to the five-point decline nationally.
While pandemic disruptions are believed to have affected this year’s national decline on NAEP, scores have been falling over the past decade in most states. Despite this national trend, Mississippi is a leader among the few states that have shown improvements on one or more NAEP assessments over the past decade. Specifically:
- Mississippi achieved significant gains in 4th grade reading and math since 2011.
- Along with Washington D.C., Mississippi is the only state or jurisdiction that improved over a 10-year period in two of the four core NAEP subjects.
- Mississippi is one of only two states with improved 4th grade math scores over a decade and one of only three states with gains in 4th grade reading.
- In 8th grade, Mississippi scores remained flat in reading and math over the past decade while the average scores nationally dropped in both subjects.
In short, over the past 10 years, Mississippi has improved significantly in reading and math in 4th grade and held steady in both subjects in 8th grade while scores nationally in both grades and subjects have declined.
In 2019, Mississippi achieved the No. 1 spot in the nation for NAEP gains when 4th grade students made the largest score gains from 2017 to 2019 in reading and mathematics, 8th grade students outpaced the nation for growth in mathematics, and 8th grade reading held steady. Student achievement has increased significantly since 2013 after the statewide implementation of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, higher academic standards with aligned assessments, a strong accountability system, and a significant investment in professional development for educators.
Pre-pandemic, student achievement steadily increased from the first administration of the state’s Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) in 2016 until 2019, when the percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced reached a record high. After a decline in MAAP scores in 2021, student achievement rebounded in 2022 to pre-pandemic levels.
19 comments:
Yes, but their TikTok, YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, and Fakebook skills have improved significantly.
Unfortunate but certainly not unique to Mississippi
Spin aside, MS public schools remain the bottom feeding catfish in the pond, they're just eating at an inch above the bottom now instead of rooting through the silt.
Meanwhile, school administrators are dining on duck and lobster.
Only School Choice, Vouchers and crippling the blood sucking teachers'unions can save these kids in MS.
9:27 Mississippi scores above the national average on most metrics. Get out of your 1970s mentality. I’m all for school choice, too. Just stop misleading people.
Is anyone surprised? The majority of kids in Jackson are sent to school for the feed food and baby setting. The parent, notice I didn't add an S on parent, does not care if the kids learn to spell their name. And most kids do not fail them as many could not read their own name if they saw it.
Jackson schools are a slush fund for the office staff.
tl;dr
The education majors -- f.k.a. "teachers" -- can't teach, and the students can't learn, assuming they even wanted to. Truly there is nothing to see here.
@11:06 AM failed grammar in school.
"feed" food
baby "setting"
In other news, water is wet.
Take it from a seasoned educator:
It's far worse than these lies, damn lies, and statistics.
@9:27
Our schools' problems (thankfully) aren't driven by teachers' unions. We have ended up with an unsustainable government employee pension without a strong school teachers union, so we haven't dodged that bullet, but we don't have a problem with teachers successfully mobilizing against the interest of students and generally stopping any form of accountability (I haven't even seen a lot of teachers that even openly advocate against students' interests; granted I'm not around teachers from the worst school districts, so that may happen elsewhere in Mississippi).
That said, School choice would be great also and is a moral imperative in places like the Delta and JPS, but it's not needed (here) because of teachers unions.
It is only going to get worse from here. I've worked in education for close to 15 years and have watched the quality of students coming into post secondary education degrade year after year. We used to only get a couple students per large class that could not read at a high school level and now I'd estimate we are much close to 50% if not higher.
JPS will not fail students that need to be held back and teachers with JPS can not give failing grades as the grading system will round failing grades up to a D. This is creating students that can not perform at needed levels in post secondary but also seems to be deeply embedding a sense of "No matter what I do I'm not going to fail" into many students I have been seeing over the last 2 years. They will repeatedly not do work and can not comprehend the fact that they received a zero. Each assignment and zero is just a shrug of the shoulders and a "Yeah I didn't feel like doing it." They also can not comprehend the fact that turning in work that is blatantly wrong will be graded as such and may get an extremely low grade if not a zero. The attitude on that is that "Well I did the work, why didn't I get an A on it?"
The USA is the only country that had this issue in the entire world! What happened in the last century to make our education system so dysfunctional?
Mississippi above the national average in 4th grade reading. So not bottom feeders. And whoever said students don’t want to learn … what a crock of generalized bullshit.
555–Shake My Damn Head. Bruh. Two thoughts First, Civil Rights. Second, other countries track students. If your are “smart” you go to college if not so much, well vo-tech is for you, boy,
When are the teachers in Mississippi going to get a union? The legislature forbids it.
Did anyone know that Mississippi also has a teacher shortage? On top of a nursing shortage?
These stats ignore and do not address the students who did NOT fall behind.
My family's students didn't not did many students in this State whose family cared enough to make sure they didn't!
I'm sick of bad parenting being blamed on bad policy.
And, yes, I know more than a few who didn't fall behind who had both parents working!
The expectation of effort and work should be well established before kids get in school.
They should also have good manners and NOT be afraid to ask questions and learn how to find answers.
"Only School Choice, Vouchers and crippling the blood sucking teachers'unions can save these kids in MS"
Another (or the same) dunder-head who believes we have "teachers' unions" in Mississippi.
Mississippi above the national average in 4th grade reading
Ironically, that is the level of reading for most athletes in Mississippi. They can still go to college if they can chase a ball.
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