Mississippi sees record-high passing rate for third-grade reading assessment

The Mississippi Department of Education has reported that 77.3% of third graders in the state passed the initial administration of the third-grade reading assessment for the 2024-25 school year. This marks a record high for Mississippi, with 25,399 students achieving this milestone.

“These results are outstanding. The MDE applauds all educators and families across the state that make literacy a priority,” stated Dr. Lance Evans, state superintendent of education. He further added, “With a continued emphasis on the science of reading as well as implementation of high-quality instructional materials, we believe Mississippi students will continue to make progress.”

A total of 32,839 third graders participated in this year's assessment. In comparison, during the previous school year (2023-24), 75.7% passed initially, with an eventual pass rate reaching 84% after retests.

Under the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), students who do not pass on their first attempt have up to two additional opportunities to retest. Those who did not succeed initially have already retested in early May, with another window scheduled from June 16 to June 27.

The LBPA was enacted in 2013 to enhance reading skills among kindergarten through third-grade students in public schools and ensure that every student completing third grade can read at or above grade level. It mandates that Mississippi third graders must pass a reading assessment to advance to fourth grade unless they qualify for specific exemptions.

An amendment made in 2016 increased expectations by requiring third graders to score at level three or higher on the English Language Arts portion of the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program starting from the 2018-19 school year.

For detailed district and school-level reports on initial pass rates for 2024-25, interested parties can visit mdek12.org/publicreporting/2024-25/. The final district-level pass rates will be available this fall in the Literacy-Based Promotion Act Annual Report of Performance and Student Retention for this academic year.