With success comes higher expectations. The Brookhaven SchoolDistrict is trumpeting its new state performance rankings andofficials are preparing to meet the challenge of higherexpectations in the years ahead.

The community learned Friday of Brookhaven High School’sclassification as a high performing school, the second-highestranking in a state performance index and the first time the schoolhas achieved the lofty status. A large sign planted on campusFriday highlights the achievement.

Brookhaven Elementary School celebrated another year in the highperforming category while other city schools moved up in categoryrankings. Alexander Junior High School made a major jump, goingfrom at risk of failing last year to successful this year, andLipsey Middle School moved up one rung on the ladder, going fromacademic watch to successful.

Subject Area and Mississippi Curriculum test results for allschools in the state were released Friday, and Brookhaven SchoolDistrict officials also made known their performance indexrankings. Performance rankings data for the Lincoln County SchoolDistrict was not available.

While the Brookhaven district marked performance rankings success,both it and the county school district for the most part scoredgood marks in subject area and curriculum testing results.

Overall, Brookhaven students fared better in Algebra and Biologywhile Lincoln County students eclipsed their city counterparts inHistory and English. City students failed to surpass the stateaverage only in the English area, while Algebra was the onlycategory in which county students fell short of the stateaverage.

Educational leaders, teachers and students are to be commended fortheir hard work and success. But as always, weak spots in locallearning remain and the educational success bar is forever beingraised with each new school year.

Bettering the state average is certainly a worthwhileaccomplishment. However, when the state average is only 68 percent- as it is in English – clearly more attention is needed in thisarea on both the state and local levels.

Language serves as a unifying force for a culture. We risk losingthat linguistic cohesion when students score so poorly on languagearts exams.

For county schools, another area of concern would have to beAlgebra, as only 66.1 percent of its students passed the test forthat subject area. Having strong math skills is a key part of thefoundation for pursuing good-paying jobs in the fields of scienceand technology.

While both school districts produced mostly good results across theelementary and secondary grade spectrum, leaders are alreadysetting out to address curriculum weak spots and further enhancesubject area strong suits. They are illustrating the axiom that “ifyou’re standing still, you’re falling behind.”

Local education leaders must take that approach because leaders ofother school districts are doing the same thing. Therefore, restingon the success of today is unacceptable because competition willcreate higher expectations that will need to be met tomorrow.