Kindergarten Readiness Scores Approach Pre-Pandemic Levels

JACKSON, Miss. – The results from last school year’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment show students are nearing pre-pandemic levels. The Board of Trustees for the Mississippi Department of Education reviewed the results during Thursday’s meeting.

The Early Learning Collaborative Act of 2013 requires each pre-kindergarten provider in the collaborative to meet a minimum rate of readiness to remain eligible for funding. Chief Accountability Officer Dr. Paula Vanderford explained this requirement to the Board.

A Baseline for Instruction

Kindergarten readiness tests demonstrate what a child knows and their abilities as they enter school. These results help create a baseline for instruction in Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms. MDE stated that the tests assess how well Pre-K programs prepare 4-year-olds for kindergarten.

Students are expected to score 498 by the time they leave a Pre-K class, ensuring they have mastered 70 percent of the necessary early learning skills. Students are tested in the fall when they start classes and again in the spring to measure growth.

Vanderford reported that the previous spring testing averaged 143 skill points in growth. This is higher than the spring 2023 average of 137 points and close to the 2022 average of 142 points.

Early Learning Collaboratives

MDE revealed that roughly a third of students entering kindergarten in the fall are ready. In spring 2024, 63.8 percent of retested kindergarten students reached the target score, up from 61.4 percent in spring 2023. Before the COVID pandemic in 2019, 65.6 percent of kindergarten students reached the target.

“Mississippi’s early childhood educators continue to improve achievement among our kindergarten and Pre-K students,” said Dr. Lance Evans, the new State Superintendent of Education. “MDE expects this upward trend to continue as we implement strategies and enhance support for teachers statewide.”

The number of students served by early learning collaboratives in spring 2024 was 6,193, up from 5,119 the previous spring. Pre-K programs are expanding, with 12 new early learning collaboratives starting in the 2022-2023 school year.

Vanderford noted that meeting the demand for coaching efforts has been challenging with the program’s expansion. However, data supports that participation in the early learning collaborative improves student outcomes.

State Invested Pre-K programs (SIP) began in 2023 with $20 million in legislative funding to expand MDE’s Pre-K programs through grants to public schools without early learning collaboratives. Vanderford reported that the first SIP cohort finished the 2023 school year with an average of 140 points of growth. Of the 891 students served by SIP, 64.2 percent met the end-of-year benchmark by spring 2024.

Programs funded by other means, such as Title I, locally funded, or self-contained programs, grew by an average of 134 points for the 2023-2024 school year. These results were similar to those seen in the prior year.

A total of 32,736 kindergarten students, 3,999 Pre-K students, and 6,193 students in early learning collaboratives were tested.

Magnolia Tribune first published this article, and it is republished here under a Creative Commons license.