MEADVILLE — School officials in Franklin County credit anaccelerated reading program and continuity in math programs forstudents’ success in grades 3-5 on the Mississippi CurriculumTest.

“We did good overall,” said Superintendent Lona Thomas. “Ireally was proud of our scores. Within the district, all of ourscores have gone up.” Scores for grades 6-7 were not available fromthe district.

Thomas pointed out the district posted no losses when comparedto its scores in last year’s MCT. The lowest gain was .8 in secondgrade reading, with the largest gain posted being 22.6 in thirdgrade math.

Success in math at all grade levels was phenomenal, Thomas said.She credits a task undertaken last year to put all district schoolson the same math program with the success.

Although language arts in grades 3-5 showed improvement whencompared with district scores last year, it lagged behind the stateaverage in gains, Thomas said.

“In language arts we didn’t do quite as well, but we anticipatedthat,” she said. “We’re focusing on that this year.”

The superintendent said the district concentrated on the readingand math aspects of the MCT last year and plans to put moreemphasis on language arts this year.

“We have not looked at the language arts program as intensely aswe had the others,” Thomas said. “Now those two are in place andwe’re going to fine tune our language arts program.”

Thomas was also pleased with the results on the Norm-Referenced,or Terra Nova, Assessment.

The district had been lagging behind the state in all threecategories in past years, but managed to break through the mathbarrier in last year’s results in a big way, she said.

The test uses a “score” of 50 as a national average and testresults are based on that score. Franklin County scored a 55 infifth grade math and a 48 in both reading and language arts.

“Overall, the state was 52 percent and we were 48 percent,”Thomas said.

After last year’s results the district was 6 percent behind thestate average.

“So we’re coming up. This is the first year in three years we’vebeen above the state average in math,” Thomas said.

The MCT, simplified, is a test that pits the student versus thetest while the Terra Nova Assessment would be a test that placesthe student in competition with all of the students who took thetest.

Thomas expects all of the scores in both tests to risesignificantly next year with continued use of the successfulreading and math programs and the emphasis on language arts.

“I predict, with the emphasis we’ll be putting on, that we’llsee better test scores than we did this year,” she said. “Thatshould raise us above the state average.”