Legislative report questions Mississippi preschool program

(AP) — A new report from a legislative watchdog agency questions how education officials are running a program to fund preschool classes for some Mississippi 4-year-olds, and says students in those classes performed worse in 2014 than students in other prekindergarten classes taught by public school districts.

Mississippi has spent almost $9 million over the past three years to fund 11 early-learning collaboratives — groups of school districts, private preschools and Head Start programs that work together with the aim of widening access to preschool in various areas.

The hope is that the programs would help more students be ready for kindergarten, and supporters are pushing lawmakers to spend more money to expand the program in the upcoming legislative session.

[...] the report finds students attending the program were 6 percent less likely to meet the state's target score for kindergarten readiness than students who attended other prekindergartens run by public schools.

"Accepted practice in education is to establish a baseline of scores on any assessment used for accountability purposes prior to setting accountability requirements," Wright wrote in an Oct. 7 response letter.