Greenwood and Leflore County have some of the best schools in the state as well as some of the worst, according to new accountability standards released Thursday by the Mississippi Department of Education.
Continuing a history of academic prominence, Bankston Elementary School received a Level 5 rating, one of only four in the Delta. At the bottom is W.C. Williams Elementary, which got Level 1 status. The rest of the schools are scattered in between, with T.Y. Fleming and Claudine Brown elementary schools receiving high marks.
Carroll County Schools were led by Level 4 Hathorn Elementary in Vaiden. The rest in the district were Level 3.
All Mississippi public schools are now judged on the following standards: Level 5, superior; Level 4, exemplary; Level 3, successful; Level 2, underperforming; Level 1, low performing.
Before, the state assigned those numbers to entire districts. Under the new standards, districts are given one of four accreditation ratings. Greenwood, Leflore and Carroll all are the highest, "accredited."
Carroll Superintendent Susan Murphy said she is pleased with the progress among the three schools in her districts.
"I always want them to be better, but for the first go around, I think we did fairly well," she said. "I hope they continue to improve."
The new system not only exposes more of the inner workings of school districts to the public; it's also a useful tool showing administrators where their schools are and where they need to go, says Barbara Corbett, director of curriculum and testing for Greenwood Public Schools.
"It shows you where you need to spend your efforts, your time, your concentration, your assistance," Corbett explained. "I think we have a much better handle on what the expectations are, what the expectations are all about and how to get there."
The ratings are based on performance on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, administered in grades 2-8, and on the state subject area tests, which eighth-graders and high school students take.
Leflore County Superintendent Cedell Pulley said he is "elated" by the Level 4 schools in his district, Claudine Brown and T.Y. Fleming. Teachers and administrators throughout the district spent most of Thursday analyzing and interpreting the new assessment data.
"In doing that, we'll be able to identify students who need remediation … and instruction and staff changes that need to be made."
Two criteria go into interpreting the test scores: how a school compares to the state average and how the school performed against the amount of growth expected of it. Each school has its own formula for growth, factoring in socio-economic conditions, past performance and other variables.
"In other words, as the state gets better, you have to get better too," Corbett said. "It's an extremely fair, equitable way of saying we've got to continue to raise the bar."
The bar has been set at Bankston, which not only scored well on the MCT but also exceeded growth expectations. Corbett called it one of the district's two surprises to come out of the accountability system.
The other is the Level 3 status assigned to Greenwood High School, where scores on subject area tests had concerned administrators, Corbett said. Greenwood Middle School also came out well, meeting its expected growth.
But that still leaves W.C. Williams at Level 1 and the district's two other elementary schools at Level 2.
Administrators started working to identify critical areas in those schools before the school year began, but there's not reason they can't excel like Bankston, Corbett said. Still more will have to be done, though.
"In these three schools we have got to have the cooperation and help of the parents," she said. "You can't tell me that the students who come to Bankston, whose parents get behind them because they know they have to perform when they go to Bankston, can't do as well. The children are living next door to each other."
The testing area that hit the schools hardest was math. That's no surprise since math scores came in low statewide.
At Leflore County High School, as at most other area schools, teachers are offering math remediation courses in the afternoons.
"We're having to struggle with our math scores," the school's Principal Charles Ollie said.
The math scores knocked the high school and a few other schools in the district down to Level 2, according to Pulley. "We had a couple of schools we thought should have been Level 3, and we have zeroed in on the causes for that," he said.
But even for the low-rated schools, there is hope, Corbett says. According to her interpretation, most of Greenwood's testing data shows that students are developing more of a foundation for future learning. For instance, children are no longer getting past the third grade without knowing how to read, she said.
"We've got a better foundation that we started with," Corbett explained. "In all the schools, it appears that the lower grades have a good grasp of what they're doing. And as these children who had those basics graduate to the next grade and the next grade and the next grade, things will get better."
