Video: Improving State Test Scores

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NOXUBEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)_ The Mississippi Department of Education released test scores for the Partnership for Assessment of readiness for College Careers.

The survey shows 49 percent of high schoolers in the state met or exceeded expectations for english two, and 27 percent met or exceeded expectations for algebra one.

But as a collective school district, some schools didn’t score as well.

Columbus High school and Noxubee County didn’t have good scores.

Algebra was less than seven percent and English two was less than 30 percent at both schools.

“As with any new test we have to look at the standard to make sure we are teaching those, but the test was definitely more rigorous for our students,” Columbus High School Assistant Superintendent Pamela Lenoir said.

This is the first year PARCC was implemented at these schools, and administrators say it was demanding for both students and teachers.

“Just being realistic in terms of the new standard and the test and everything, we kind of knew that our test scores would probably be lower than what we wanted them to be,” Noxubee County High School Principal Pat Johnson-Cook said.

Cook says she’s not happy with the her school’s scores, and as a result, the schools leadership team is taking action.

“We have already put into place an 8 period day where students are provided the opportunity to get some extended learning time where they can go to teachers for extra help and then we’ve tried to reduce our teacher-to-people ratio,” she said.

And just hours after administrators from Columbus high school received their scores, they already have a plan in place for students.

“As a matter of fact, this morning the school board just approved for extra support in tutoring for students in English 10 and in the Algebra one area,” Lenoir said.
Lawmakers are currently pushing Merit pay, which means, the better students test, the more teachers will get paid.

Dr. Scott says this method could be beneficial for testing moving forward.

“I think for some that would be a motivator, certainly anytime money is involved, I’m sure that’s a motivation,” Cook said.
Cook says despite having low scores collectively, the school had a number of students that scored well individually on the English portion.