The ACT scores for juniors who took the test in the spring of 2017 were released by the Mississippi Department of Education Thursday, showing a statewide decrease in test scores.
Conversely, the students in the Picayune and Poplarville School Districts either showed an increase in scores, or those scores stayed the same in every category of the test. Pearl River County School District scores ranked in the top 10 of the state, PRCSD Curriculum Coordinator Kimberly Alford said.
Pearl River County School District might not have seen an increase, but the scores stayed relatively the same. PRCSD ranked 12th in the state last year with a composite score of 20.3. This year, the composite score was 20.2 out of a possible 36. Though just slightly below last year’s mark, this overall score ranks PRCSD 10th in the state.
The statewide average composite score was 18, according to information released by MDE.
“The Pearl River Central High School ACT Prep teaching team has worked diligently on targeting the skills that students need assistance with on the ACT. In addition, the high school has made an intentional effort to focus on ACT practice items and ACT vocabulary in all classrooms,” Alford said.
Picayune School District increased its composite score from last year’s 17.9 to 18.8 in 2017, ranking 30th in the state. Picayune Memorial High School juniors who took the test also showed growth in every category, posting the school’s highest score in reading, increasing from 18.3 to 19.2 this year.
The PMHS juniors had an average science score of 19.1, which was an increase of 0.7 points from last year. The next highest score was in the mathematics category, scoring 18.5, a 0.9 point increase from last year. Finally, the English score for PMHS juniors was 17.7, an increase of 0.8 points.
Poplarville Separate School District students showed improvement in every category as well, ranking 16th in the state with a composite score of 19.6. Poplarville High School juniors showed the most growth in science scores, increasing last year’s average score of 19.3 to 20.4 this year, the highest science scores in the county. Next, PHS scored 19.8 in the reading category, an increase of 0.4; and scored 19.2 in mathematics, an increase of 0.5. Poplarville’s English scores remained the same as last year’s, 18.4 on average in the category.