Brookhaven School District officials were pleased with theresults they received on three tests given annually. The resultswere released late last week.

“I was pleased we made improvements over what we had done lastyear,” said Lea Barrett, assistant superintendent.

She said the district is still compiling comparisons between thestate and district and some others they use that compare areas inthe district, but could talk about some state and districtresults.

Officials were especially delighted with results posted by theeighth grade on the Mississippi Curriculum Test. The MCT testsstudents in grades 2-8 in three subject areas — Reading, Languageand Mathematics.

The district had already exceeded the state average in priortests in the three subject areas, and posted gains of nearly 15points in the 2001-2002 tests.

“Math is usually the area where you see the most significantdecrease in the eighth grade,” Barrett said, adding the districtincreased in that area by 14.5 points.

One factor in the improvement in eighth grade scores may be theaddition of the computers for the math and science classrooms thatwere received through a grant, Barrett said.

“I wouldn’t want to fully credit that, but I would like to thinkthat it had a major impact,” she said. “The principals and teacherswill be meeting soon to give that further analysis. I would preferto hear (the reasons) from the principals and from the people whowere actually in the classrooms, because they may have a totallydifferent view of it.”

Students taking the MCT are grouped into four target areas,Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Minimal. Districts have a few yearsto get all students in the Basic and Minimal categories into thetop two levels.

Results also showed that the district has a larger percentage ofstudents in the advanced and proficient target areas than the stateaverage.

In all, Barrett said, the district showed a 67 percent increaseover results last year. She said she based her figures onimprovement in 16 of 24 individual tests that make up the MCTbattery.

The district was also very pleased with their results on theNorm-Referenced, or Terra Nova, Assessment, she said.

The district outperformed the state average in seven of eighttested areas. The one area that the district lagged behind thestate was in language and they were behind by only .1, posting a51.7 in comparison to the state average of 51.8.

To understand those results, Barrett explained, consider the MCTto be a test that pits the student versus the test while the TerraNova Assessment would be a test that places the student incompetition with all of the students who took the test.

In other words, she said, the MCT tests the base of knowledgeall children should have while the Terra Nova tests a student’sknowledge against other students’ knowledge.

The fact that the district exceeded the state average on theTerra Nova Assessment proves Brookhaven School District is a strongdistrict and one that is continually improving, she said.

“Our principals, counselors and teachers are more than happy tosit down and discuss these scores and what they mean to theparents,” Barrett said. “We want them, invite them and solicit themto become fully involved with their child’s education.”