More than 75% of Mississippi’s third-grade public schoolers passed the reading Mississippi Academic Assessment Program on the first try. The Mississippi Department of Education announced the scores during the board of trustees’ May 21 meeting. The scores are a slight decrease from last school year, when students posted the highest initial pass rate in the test’s history, with 77.3% of third graders passing on the first attempt. The state also tested nearly 1,000 fewer students this year.
“When we reported to you last year, we were at an all-time high for our initial pass rate of 77.3%, but unfortunately, this year you’ll see that we fluctuated and our results at 75.6% for initial pass rate resemble very closely to what we had in the spring of ‘24,” MDE Chief Accountability Officer Paula Vanderford told the board.
The Mississippi Model
Vanderford reported that 51% of Mississippi school districts had more than 80% of students meet promotion requirements. Twelve of those districts had 90% or more students meet the requirements. Amory School District had more than 95% of its students pass the initial exam per MDE data, the highest achievement rate in the state.
Nine districts had 50% or more students fail to meet promotion requirements. MDE released data showing those districts as Carroll County, Clarksdale Municipal, East Tallahatchie Consolidated, Humphreys County, North Panola, Noxubee County, Wilkinson County, Yazoo City Municipal school districts and Smilow Collegiate Charter School.
“That’s up from the seven that we had in 2025, but down from the 11 in 2024 districts year over year, each of those groups,” Vanderford said.
The test, commonly referred to as the “reading gate,” was passed into state law as part of the Literacy-Based Promotion Act in 2013. As part of the LBPA, third-grade students are required to pass the third-grade exam in order to be promoted to the fourth grade. Students who do not pass on the first attempt are given up to two additional retests. The first retest was given during the week of May 11-15. Students who do not pass on the second attempt will retake the test during the June 22-26 window. Some students may also qualify for one of five “good cause exemptions,” including students with limited English proficiency who have had less than two years of instruction in the English Language Learners program and students who pass an alternate exam provided by MDE.
MDE Chief Academic Officer Wendy Clemons said MDE will continue to provide districts with guidance and resources on the most effective, evidence-based interventions and on statewide literacy training for all teachers. The department will also work with schools that have more than 20% of students reading below grade level to implement schedules that provide adequate time for delivering foundational reading skills interventions, providing teachers with evidence-based resources and decreasing time spent on test preparation.
Using the Resources
Clemons presented a map to the board showing each district’s level of participation in the offered training. She said they plan to conduct further research on the correlation between district participation in the trainings and student achievement.
“(There) are districts that had zero participants in this current school year, and so we are really trying to disaggregate and find out, looking at the data, looking at who’s been served, who’s tapped into resources, who maybe have not, and then make some specific calls and visits in areas where we feel like the data and possibly the lack of supports or requests of supports line up,” Clemons told the board.
Board of Trustees Chair Matt Miller worried that not all districts were taking advantage of the resources and training MDE provides.
“I presume the answer to this is, ‘No,’ but I’m gonna let you answer,” Miller said. “Are all of the districts that were in the group where they had greater than 50% of their students that did not pass the first time participating in all the avenues of help that you were providing?”
Clemons responded that she would need to verify that.
“More likely than not, the answer is no and I can tell from the heat map the answers, because of the little familiarity I have with them,” Miller continued. “Then it seems to me that those who are not participating in those things are doing a great disservice to their students, because this is available. All they have to do is ask for it. Am I correct? It’s free, but they gotta ask.”
Superintendent Lance Evans clarified that the heat map only showed districts that took advantage of one specific type of training and not all the training provided through MDE. He said the state spent $17.5 million in state agency funds on coaching and support and that MDE would hold districts accountable for using the resources provided.
“If MDE is not doing what we’re supposed to do, I will take care of that,” Evans told the board. “If districts aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do, we’ll pull our services. And when we pull them, we pull them through the board. We go to the board, say, ‘Hey board, you’re not living up to your end of the bargain. We’re now taking our services, and we’re going to these people that are begging for it.’”
Final district-level pass rates will be published this fall in the Literacy-Based Promotion Act Annual Report of Performance and Student Retention for the 2025-26 school year.
