̫ӳ College of Education’s DREAMS grant yields positive test results
Contact: Paige Watson
STARKVILLE, Miss. — According to a new statewide report, Mississippi State’s College of Education is making a major impact on literacy in a nearby public school system.
The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) recently released its annual MKAS2 3rd Grade Reading Summative Assessment Results, and the Louisville Municipal School District (LMSD) achieved a marked improvement in test scores for 2016. Administrators are pointing to a successful collaborative grant with the college.
Part of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers programs, Dillard’s Reading, Enrichment, Arts, Mathematics and Science (DREAMS) after-school and summer enrichment program focuses on assisting students and providing extra enrichment activities in reading and mathematics in the rural district’s kindergarten-fourth grades.
The nearly $2 million grant to the university’s College of Education and LMSD to help boost student achievement through academic tutoring, interventions, and literacy and mathematics enrichment is named for the late Susan Gregory Dillard, ̫ӳ alumna and longtime LMSD teacher who assisted with the initial grant proposal.
LMSD Superintendent Ken McMullan credits the university’s partnership with the school district, as well as “the hard-working staff who make the collaboration so beneficial to the participating students.”
Angela Mulkana, an ̫ӳ lecturer in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education (CISE), is one of the grant’s co-principal investigators. “Students have received focused interventions based on their individual needs,” she explained.
Mulkana added, “With the consistency provided with these interventions, students were able to reach goals set forth by the program.”
Rebecca Robichaux-Davis, who also serves as the co-principal investigator responsible for all mathematics aspects of the grant, said, “Given that reading is such an integral part of 21st-century mathematics, the successes of the literacy component of the grant also are evident in the mathematics achievement of the DREAMS students.”
Winston County Mississippi Scholars volunteer Margaret Taylor said she believes DREAMS is making a difference by providing students with a firm foundation for the rest of their school years.
Taylor added, “The positive outcomes of these students in their early years will make a profound difference in our district’s dropout rate which, in turn, will impact Mississippi’s dropout rate.”
LMSD schools scored at or above score levels for most surrounding districts.
To read the full report, click .
For more information about DREAMS, contact the DREAMS office at 662-773-2015.
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