re: The Mississippi Education Turnaround Continues

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She says it’s not money, but an ability to teach disciplined students.

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You would think this would be painfully obvious. Kids raised during the depression had a fraction of what today's kids have but we spent less and got more for it. Schools that are allowed to get back to the basics, whether they're charter schools or whatever, get results. Education isn't some magic formula and it didn't get mysterious and unsolvable just because it's 2020.

Thank you

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What new policies, people and/or funding is in place?

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Covered it more detail in previous posts, but rundown:

1. New state superintendent. Hired from outside MS. Highest paid in nation.
2. A serious look at the problem beyond more money.
3. Realization that reading is really fundamental, not a cliche.
4. Focus on science of reading in early grades. Interventionist (trained in this science by people outside the state) in every building.
5. Third grade reading gate. End of social promotion.
6. Ended elected superintendents, which was killing some districts.

The graduation rate is based off of 9th-12th grade it follows those kids. So the elementary school thing might be great but they would not be part of the stats yet unless you are counting 7th graders in 2013 as part of the elementary Ed changes.

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Not passing judgement on the overall OP but grad rate is easily the most irrelevant stat in our public school system.

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And yet the brain trust at USN&WR and other savants who rank higher education have made it a metric for how they evaluate a "good" university. And just like that, the tail wags the dog and schools now focus on everybody graduating so they can move from 84th place to 83rd place.

We have one of if not the best university systems in the world and it's getting infected by the same garbage that harmed k-12. It's crazy.

You could solve almost every problem with education by incentivizing parents to care about their kids progress. When they have skin in the game the kids will learn. I bet if there was a way to measure and track parents involvement with making their kids do their homework and helping them every night, those kids would all track the same in success rate no matter if they went to the worst public school in the state or the best private school.

Thanks for posting this thread anc! Best I've seen in a long time.

Isn’t that what the Scandinavian countries do? Don’t they kind of determine IQs and then put kids on tracks in middle and upper schools based on their potential? I would be all for that.

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Isn’t that what the Scandinavian countries do? Don’t they kind of determine IQs and then put kids on tracks in middle and upper schools based on their potential? I would be all for that.

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LOTS of countries do variations of this. Because it's just fricking rational. The US used to do it a variation of it!!

But, "OMG racism!!!!"

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ShortyRob

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Get out of my head!

I've been in education (K-12 and higher) for 20 years. There needs to be a dramatic change in how we prepare students for life after high school.

I think at the end of eighth grade, you divide students into two tracks - academic and workforce.

The academic track has three subtracks -

Track 1 is advanced. Take no prisoners. It's tough. AP classes. Preparation for college beginning in 9th grade. Math ends at Calculus AB/BC.

Track 2 is accelerated. Its advanced, but not as much as Track 1. Students in this track will be well prepared for college by the time they graduate, and will have the opportunity to do dual enrollment classes with the local community college system.

Track 3 is basic academic. These are students that aren't advanced, but want to pursue careers that will require college. Most students here will attend community college.

There can be movement between the tracks.

The workforce track allows incoming ninth graders to pick a CTE field such as allied health, construction, auto mechanics, etc. and students spend a half a day in career-based classes and half a day in basic academic and extracurricular.

Workforce track students can move to the academic track at the end of their 10th or 11th grade year, but must spend 9th and 10th grade in the workforce track. If they graduate in the workforce track, they can either test for certification or gain admission to community college.