Commission approves new A–F performance-level cuts for 2025–26 accountability ratings

The Commission of School Accreditation voted on Nov. 18 to adopt recommended A–F performance-level cuts that will take effect for the 2025–26 Mississippi Statewide Accountability System.

Chair Pamela Manners called the special meeting and introduced Mr. Al Burrow, who presented the standard-setting process used to produce the recommendations. Burrow told commissioners the Center for Assessment facilitated two standard-setting meetings — Sept. 9 and Oct. 13 — and that the committee included representatives from the Legislature, the governor’s office, superintendents and district accountability staff. He said the group used a hybrid approach, combining norm-referenced and criterion-referenced methods, to test how different cut points would change the distribution of letter grades.

"We wanted to use this year's data, because we wanted to get as far…