NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: March 28, 2019
JACKSON, Miss. – The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) added today three new components to the Mississippi Succeeds Report Card, an interactive online tool designed to help parents and communities more easily evaluate schools across the state. The new components include discipline data from the Office of Civil Rights, school-level per-pupil expenditure data, and additional student group data.
Launched in October 2018, the Mississippi Succeeds Report Card contains detailed information about each school and district’s academic performance, including how well students performed on state tests and their academic growth from one year to the next. The additional information available today is the first of several planned enhancements to the online report card.
“We will continue to provide transparent and important information to families and communities to help them make decisions about how well their schools are preparing students for success,” said Dr. Carey Wright, state superintendent of education.
Discipline data from the U.S. Office of Civil Rights is one of the new features. In spring 2017, each school district submitted data to the Office of Civil Rights for the 2015-16 school year, including data on school-based arrests and referrals to law enforcement. The data from 2017-18 data will be added after release from the Office of Civil Rights.
The per-pupil expenditures, including school and district levels, is now displayed. MDE reports per-pupil expenditure data in two ways - the Superintendent’s Annual Report and now on the report card. The per-pupil expenditure information on the online report card is defined by federal law, and the information in the Superintendent’s Annual Report is defined by state law. Therefore, per-pupil expenditure numbers will look different in each report.
Student group data is now reported at the state-level only and includes combinations of performance and participation data for different groups of students, for example, Asian males or Hispanic/Latino students with disabilities.
In addition, the Mississippi Succeeds Report Card provides the following:
- Teacher workforce data,
- Student disciplinary actions (suspensions and expulsions), and
- Chronic absenteeism rates.
The public can access the Mississippi Succeeds Report Cards at msrc.mdek12.org.
Media Contact:
Patrice Guilfoyle, APR
Director of Communications
601-359-3706
Jean Cook, APR
Director of Public Relations
601-359-3519