When Dr. Carey Wright, the state superintendent of education, recently announced she will be retiring at the end of June, the Mississippi Department of Education sent out a press release listing her accomplishments.
Some of those are legitimate bragging points of her nine-year tenure, such as the state’s marked improvement on reading and math tests given nationally every two years.
But it’s irritating that she and other higher-ups at MDE continue to boast about the state’s big jump in its graduation rate while failing to acknowledge that the rise largely coincided with weakening the graduation requirements.
Mississippi has a higher graduation rate than the national average because, under Wright’s prodding, the state made it easier to get a diploma.
