Lest Panola County school patrons — and that’s all of us: parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, administrators and their families, taxpayers; every one of us has a stake in not just our own school district but both school districts — lest we view our local schools askance after the announcement of “D” grades for the 2015-2016 year, we need to understand what has been asked of students, teachers, principals and administrators during the last three or more school years.
Students have taken different standardized tests in each of the last three years — the MCT2 test in 2013-2014, the PARCC test in 2014-2015 and the MAP test in 2015-2016 — what those acronyms stand for is really not important here, just the idea of different tests.
Among the reasons for changing tests was the groundswell of pushback that arose against the Common Core curriculum. The state legislature stepped in, Common Core got booted, but the state then dragged its feet about deciding on a suitable replacement test.
Among the benefits cited for standardized testing are not only does it identify whether or not students have mastered a skill, it is also supposed to help identify teachers who may be less effective at teaching certain required skills. Principals and administrators can then step in and help the teacher improve his or her presentations and explanations. It sounds like a good idea.
(In extreme cases, it could result in a teacher’s removal but the idea is to help them improve.)
However, school districts across the state did not receive the results from the Mississippi Department of Education  (MDE) for the 2014-2015 PARCC test until summer, 2016. By then students had already been tested with the 2015-2016 MAP test. Districts never had a chance to learn from the PARCC test, leaving them no opportunity to make adjustments that might have better prepared students for the MAP test.
There’s another wrinkle: there is no set criteria for a school to be graded A through F. Only after all the standardized test results from all state schools have been gathered by MDE is the grading scale determined. It is as though they use something like the old Bell Curve — a small percentage at the top, a small percentage at the bottom, with the majority somewhere in the middle — to determine schools’ and districts’ grades.
So now we have the politicians in the legislature and the bureaucrats at MDE helping to shape how students and school districts will be evaluated.
(And remember it was mismanagement at MDE that caused both districts to lose their 21st Century funding for proven after-school and summer remedial programs, but that’s another story.)
Meanwhile, at district levels in Batesville and Sardis, and in the classrooms of county schools, teachers, principals and superintendents — with all this rigmarole coming from the state — are trying to figure out how to help kids learn what they need to know.
The amazing thing is that they are cautiously optimistic. We have heard from various sources in both districts that teachers and principals have “bought in,” to plans to improve student scores and ultimately, school grades. Even if the target keeps moving.