The Olympics of Education

In contrast to Massachusetts schools’ gold medal achievements, Mississippi has zero high schools ranked with a gold medal. However, five (2.1%) of the total 236 Mississippi public high schools assessed in the study received the silver medal status. For the bronze medal level of performance, Mississippi has 59 ranked schools (one-fourth of the 236 schools) that met the standards of state test performance and graduation rate, but not the college-level AP testing standard, whether the tests were offered at the high school or not. With none having received the gold medal achievement, Mississippi’s public high schools only make up 0.2% of the United States’ public high schools that achieved a silver medal status during the 2014–2015 school year. This means that — among the 2,609 gold and silver medal-achieving schools across the nation — ultimately only five of Mississippi’s total number of public schools are producing college-ready students with exposure to and experience in testing at collegiate levels, according to the extensive data collected by the Research Triangle Institute and U.S. News & World Report. These top-performing schools, rated first to fifth respectively in Mississippi rankings, are Lewisburg High School, Biloxi High School, Ocean Springs High School, Oak Grove High School, and DeSoto Central High School.

In integrating more vocational courses or experiences into the foundational high school curriculum, there is a high probability that Mississippi’s education system would improve its rankings and receive more medals — going for the gold.

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