The America Reads Challenge (ARC) program, part of AmeriCorps, has the primary goal of ensuring that all children can read proficiently by the end of third grade. In Mississippi, the ARC program is referred to as the America Reads-Mississippi (ARM) program. In 1999, 37 schools in 25 school districts participated in this program, sponsored by 3…

This paper is based on a study of the Success for All (SFA) reading program at two Mississippi elementary schools. In particular, the study investigated whether SFA was being implemented as advocated by its developers, students' reading scores on standardized achievement tests, how the program was monitored, attitudes toward reading, and what key…

In 1988, the Mississippi Legislature established a public school rating system, ranging from 1 (probation) to 5 (exceptional). The new superintendent of Oxford Public Schools took only three years to make the level-3 district 1 of only 12 Mississippi school systems to achieve level 5 status. Reading Recovery helped. (MLH)

The 1998 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) state level reading assessment measured fourth- and eighth-grade students' reading proficiency in situations that involved reading for three purposes: reading for literary experience, reading to gain information, and reading to perform a task (grade 8 only). This report describes the…

Describes the successful use of the beginning reading program called Sing, Spell, Read, and Write (SSRW) in Aberdeen (Mississippi) elementary schools. Using a whole language rather than basal reading approach and emphasizing phonics and total immersion, SSRW has been instrumental in dramatically improving achievement test scores and in combating…

This report provides selected results from the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for Mississippi's public-school students at grades 4 and 8. Since 1992, reading has been assessed in four different years at the state level (at grade 4 in 1992 and 1994, and at both grades 4 and 8 in 1998 and 2002). Mississippi participated in…

On July 28, 2006, a panel of experts briefed members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the putative benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary education. Four experts presented written statements to the Commissioners that assessed the social science literature on this issue. They also addressed whether or not…