Jumpstart Test Prep announced the selection of 31 Mississippi High Schools that will implement a legislatively funded test prep program to juniors preparing for the state mandated ACT exam administered during the spring of 2020.
Area pilot schools include:
• Coahoma County High School.
• Horn Lake High School.
• Leland High School.
• Olive Branch High School.
• Strayhorn High School.
• Yazoo County High School.
The prep classes will begin at all selected Mississippi high schools a few weeks preceding the scheduled test day.
The pilot program is funded through a $175,000 allocation from the Mississippi Legislature and will support approximately 4,100 juniors in improving their ACT test scores during the 2020-2021 school year.
Working in conjunction with the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), through the Office of Secondary Education, the goal of the 2020-2021 Mississippi legislative pilot is to assist teachers at the selected high schools with improving ACT composite English sub-score averages, as well as gain feedback and improvement results from schools awarded the review course pilot.
In May 2019, Jumpstart Test Prep announced the results from 15 Mississippi High Schools that completed the first, State-sponsored Math review for nearly 1,700 juniors preparing for the state administered February 2019 ACT exam.
Following completion of the Jumpstart Test Prep review, nearly half of the students with prior ACT attempts had an average Math score improvement of 2.24 points.
In June 2019, ACT English improvements were announced following a study conducted at 6 Mississippi High Schools. The study showed over 57-percent of the students had an average ACT English score improvement of 3.15 points over their best prior attempt.
In June 2020, even higher improvement gains were announced for ACT science and reading subject areas.
"I was excited for my scholars, staff, and school to learn that our application had been chosen for this pilot program," said Torrey A. Hampton, principal of Forest Hill High School.
Forrest Hill was one of the schools awarded the Jumpstart ACT science and reading prep pilot in the 2019-20 school year.
"My team and I worked to create an implementation plan that worked well within our master schedule,” said Hampton. “After the first day of review, scholars had very positive comments about their experience. They liked the videos and strategies that were provided. This program gave our school community a chance to promote and build excitement for the ACT in our school even more. More than half of our students realized gains over their best prior scores, averaging over 3 point improvement in both subject areas."
Jake Hoskins, Ph.D., of Westminster College in Salt Lake City, was selected by Jumpstart Test Prep to analyze the pre- and post- ACT exam scores provided by each school last year and continues in this capacity for the 2020-21 school year.
His analysis revealed that the Jumpstart ACT review produced discernable and consistent improvement at the individual school and global analysis levels. Improvements were consistently seen across student demographics (race, gender, academic strength) and school rating. When optimally implemented, the review program proved the ability to drive several point score improvements to school averages and drastically improve ACT exam results.
"To again validate the effectiveness of Jumpstart Test Prep's review program, a field experiment is designed for implementation prior to the 2021 statewide administration date (Spring 2021) of the ACT exam for High School Juniors," said Hoskins. "This extensive field study that is planned for 2020-21 builds upon a similar set of trials that was conducted for the past two academic years that clearly demonstrated effectiveness of the program in all subject areas."
