UNM CCPI recently completed a three-year evaluation of professional growth and development supports in Mississippi, aimed at faculty in colleges of education who teach future teachers. The effort, known as the Mississippi Momentum Partnership, was a result of Mississippi’s Literacy Based Promotion Act. The Act was enacted in 2013 and focused on improving children’s reading and ensuring children were reading at grade level by the end of third grade.

Key results from the evaluation show that a majority of Mississippi Momentum participants reported they learned a significant amount about the science of reading, developed new techniques for educating pre-service teachers in early literacy instruction, and developed an enhanced sense of competence in their classrooms. While most states saw no improvement or a decline in scores in 2019, only Mississippi saw improvement in three of the four test subjects: fourth-grade reading and math, and eighth-grade math—including reaching the national average score in fourth-grade reading for the first time.

All three annual reports for the Mississippi Momentum evaluation are available on the Cradle to Career Policy Institute in the publications section:  https://ccpi.unm.edu/publications