The state uses test scores to measure a district's worth relative to other districts in the state. But it doesn't take into account the poverty and family problems that educators in towns like Hollandale say make it unrealistic to compare their students with children from more affluent areas. And no one's been able to recognize the hard work our teachers are doing. Already, a state task force has met on the issue, and more committees are at work. But as Mississippi looks to other states for models of the criteria it can use to hold schools and districts accountable, state policymakers will find a confounding array of alternatives.
States can focus on average test scores of students as Mississippi does.
They can adjust for factors such as poverty that conspire to keep test scores low in places like Hollandale. And they can take into account a school's dropout rate or its average daily attendance. A state can set a high cutoff, knowing that lots of schools will fail, or it can set the bar low to start with and notch it up over time. There's no outside data that I know of that supports the meaning of those categories. The whole process is more political than psychometric.