C Rating: An In-depth Look At The Figures
Staff Report
WATER VALLEY – It took until July 14, but the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) has finally released the official letter grades for schools and districts across the state for the 2014-2015 school year. According to the report, both Water Valley High School and Davidson Elementary School earned a “C” rating, which led to an overall “C” rating for the Water Valley School District as well. Since MDE changed their rating system to an A-F model, similar to a traditional report card, the Water Valley School District was labeled a “D” for three straight years – from 2011-2012 until 2013-2014.
Why did the results take so long to be released?
2014-2015 marked a year of change in Mississippi in terms of public education. MDE hired a new assessment company, which also meant using a new and unfamiliar test. There are always problems with a new testing system, but MDE reported having some significant trouble with the results leading to the lateness of the reporting.
According to a press release accompanying the release of the results, MDE stated, “Accountability labels are typically reported in the fall following the end of a school year; however, results were delayed because of data quality errors with PARCC (the new assessment company).”
What factors are included in the rating?
To calculate the rating, schools are measured on a series of factors related to their standardized testing results. A great deal of emphasis is placed on proficiency and growth, particularly for the lowest performing 25 percent of students. To achieve growth, a student must improve from one proficiency level to the next from the previous year. Under MDE’s new system, the lowest performing 25 percent of students actually count twice when measuring their growth, in the hopes of helping students who are behind academically attempt to catch up to proficiency on their grade level. Proficiency is the percentage of students who score proficient or better on their standardized test in a particular subject. Below are the factors involved in the rating process, as well as the scores for the 2014-2015 school year.
What does it mean?
Overall, the statewide 2014-12015 accountability ratings are not quite what they seem, as this is the last year of a waiver, which would allow any district whose rating dropped to keep the higher grade from the previous year, due to all of the extensive changes to the assessment system. For example, if a “C” district earned a “D” for the 2014-2015 school year, they would keep the “C” rating from 2013-2014. This was not needed for the Water Valley School District due to the improvement. While a “C” rating at first glance may not seem great, the rating is the result of years of hard work toward the goal of improvement by the teachers, students and administrators of the Water Valley Schools.
These results are especially impressive considering all of the changes and uncertainty involved in the 2014-2015 school year. In a year in which many districts across the state technically dropped a letter grade, Water Valley actually improved. MDE is also striving to improve the extent to which the statewide assessment ratings accurately depict the success of schools across the state. According to their press release, MDE feels the new assessment used for the 2015-2016 school year will compare favorably to the 2014-2015 data. “Parents and communities will have better information to determine if their children and school are meeting expectations for college and career preparation,” said Dr. Carey Wright, the state superintendent of education.
What about 2015-2016?
As frustrating as it may be for schools and communities, the delay in receiving results for statewide accountability ratings is nothing new for schools in Mississippi. With that said, the release of these results did take much longer than usual. Early indications by the State Department of Education show the accountability ratings for the 2015-16 school year could be released as early as September.
Currently the only official results for the 2015-2016 school year, which just concluded this past May, are the high school’s graduation rate and the results for Kindergarten Readiness Assessment at the Elementary School. In terms of the graduation rate, after experiencing a record improvement for the 2014-2015 school year of better than 84 percent, WVHS’ graduation rate dipped back to 69.5 percent for the 2015-2016 school year.
In terms of the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, which tests kindergarten students in both the fall and springs to measure their academic growth, DES students improved from an average fall scale score of 491 to an average scale score of 705 in the spring. The average scale score growth of 214 points is a slight improvement from the 2014-2015 assessment results, which demonstrated a growth of 212 average scale score points.
As the State of Mississippi and the Department of Education continue to work to improve the quality of education received by Mississippi students, there will always be ups and downs for individual schools as they cope with increasing amounts of testing, new assessments and standards for achievement, and varying levels of funding and resources provided by the state.
As we await the results for this past year, now is the time to celebrate the improvements that have been made and commend all of the teachers, students, and administrators who worked so diligently in recent years to make this improvement possible. Public education is often a thankless business, but if you see a WVHS or DES teacher around town, take the time to pat them on the back and say thank you…they have earned it!
(Editor’s Note: Herald writer Justin Geurin contributed to this article. Geurin worked as an administrator at the high school during the 2014-15 school year.)
