The Magnolia State, long the basement-dweller among states for its laughable standards for "proficiency" on its NCLB tests, is raising the bar, reports Education Week. This is consistent with a pattern we noticed in last year's Proficiency Illusion report, where states with some of the lowest standards (such as Texas) bring them up a notch, while states with high standards (such as South Carolina) let them slide a bit. Thus, we found a "walk to the middle," as opposed to the "race to the bottom" that we expected. So to Mississippi we say: welcome, walkers!
Photo by Flickr user christianabe.
