Michael Cormack felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
In May, Jackson Public Schools’ deputy superintendent was at his desk in the district’s central office, with the most recent third grade reading test results spread in front of him. As he thumbed through the papers, which showed that just over half of the students tested passed the state assessment on the first try, the knot in his stomach grew.
He realized he had to do something — immediately. Within weeks, Project 75 was born.
Project 75 is a reading initiative with an ambitious goal: to boost the percentage of third graders in JPS who pass the state assessment on the first attempt from 55% to 75%. Cormack presented his plan for Project 75 to the school board in August, but the initiative kicked off in earnest in mid-November.
It’s a bold leap, but based on the data about students’ ultimate success rate, Cormack believes it’s possible.
In 2013, state lawmakers passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act aimed at increasing reading proficiency. The legislation put a historic amount of money and resources toward the goal and established a third grade reading “gate.” To get promoted to fourth grade, students have three tries to pass, or score 3 out of 5 or higher, on the reading portion of the state English Language Arts assessment.
Students have increasing success with each attempt. This past year, about 70% of JPS third graders ultimately scored high enough to move to the next grade, 15 points lower than the statewide average.
“What that indicates to me is that there is some latent knowledge that scholars activate, and there’s a level of seriousness and intensity once we get the initial scores back,” Cormack said. “But what we want to do is to tap into those energies early to ensure that out the gate, the performance is strong.”
Largely thanks to the literacy act, the percentage of Mississippi’s fourth graders scoring advanced or proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress has steadily grown, going from last in the country to ninth. But a closer look at the data reveals districts that still struggle, including Jackson.
Cormack, whose background includes K-12 teaching and leading the Barksdale Reading Institute, reviewed hundreds of files for every student who failed the state reading test last year. The documents arrived by milk crate this spring, after being reviewed by school-level administrators.
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