If the journal entries in Janice Aust's second-grade class at W.C. Williams Elementary School are any sign, her students should ace this week's Mississippi Curriculum Test.
"We write in journals every morning, and this morning, they wrote, 'We're going to take a big test today, and we're going to do a good job,'" Aust said. "So they seem pretty confident."
Listening to a little Mozart to take the edge off before the four-hour test, Jasmine Jones, 8, wrote: "Today we are taking a test. We are taking it to see if we can go to third grade."
Jasmine and her classmates know there's a lot riding on this, the first end-of-year standardized test these 7- and 8-year-olds have ever taken. Not only will their scores reflect their own performance and retention; together with the higher grades' scores, they will determine the rating of the whole school. Students in grades 2-8 take the tests.
For them, their teachers and school administrators, this is a crucial year for testing. It's the third year that data will be collected under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which is monitoring whether schools show "adequate yearly progress." The ones that don't will be labeled "priority schools" and face government intervention.
This is also the second year that the state is tracking test scores to determine its new accreditation ratings. Now, instead of giving one grade to the whole district, each school is marked one of five levels, Level 5 being the best. Last year was a pilot run for the schools. The state Department of Education issued ratings, but they weren't released to the public.
Now, with the real thing at stake, school officials are trying to cover all the bases of preparation.
"We've been telling our parents to have our students sleep well, eat a good breakfast and study however they can for the test, and hopefully, they'll do well," said Leflore County Superintendent Cedell Pulley.
Pulley said he was pleased with the way Wednesday morning's reading test went. He will continue to monitor the students as they take language today and math Thursday.
Tuesday's session went well in the Greenwood School District too, according to Barbara Corbett, director of curriculum instruction and testing.
"After monitoring all the schools, everything looks very good so far," she said. "The students look focused, they look on task. The teachers are going about the business of following the directions and administering the test in proper manner. And I'm very pleased with what I've seen so far."
Corbett and Pulley hope the business-like air of the testing sessions reflects the students' preparedness after months of practice.
Throughout the school year, teachers have turned in lesson plans that follow state benchmarks. They've also been subject to classroom observers.
But covering all the fundamentals doesn't ensure that young children will perform well. They have to become familiar with the format used to test the material, Pulley said.
"Sometimes when children get something they've never seen before, they may know the content, but they just can't get it together," he said.
Both districts require teachers to follow the Mississippi Curriculum Test format on their tests throughout the year. Eventually, Corbett says, the test is ingrained in the students' test-taking patterns.
"I think it's counterproductive to, quote, 'practice' for the test,'" she said. "I don't agree with that at all. You don't practice, you just live that way so then when it comes time for the test, it comes naturally because you've done it all the way through."
But last-minute measures are still taken.
While Aust soothes her students with classical music and writing, across the hall, Tracy Marshall has a different approach for preparing her students. They sing.
"We sing songs to get them all excited and to motivate them," she said.
It apparently worked, from the assessment given by one of her students, 7-year-old John Wiggins. "I think I did good on the test because I took my time and Ms. Marshall kept on smiling at us when she came around," he said.
