The Mississippi Department of Education has released updated Kindergarten Readiness Assessment results for the 2025-26 school year.
Among kindergarten students, 37.07% scored as kindergarten-ready in fall 2025. By spring 2026, 55.02% met the end-of-year target score on the assessment.
The assessment is given to kindergarten and pre-K students in the fall and spring of each school year. It is designed to measure what children know when they enter school and how much progress they make during the year.
The update also includes results for pre-K students enrolled in Early Learning Collaboratives, State Invested Pre-K programs and other public pre-K programs.
In spring 2026, 31,588 kindergarten students were tested. The assessment also included 6,620 students in Early Learning Collaboratives, 1,860 students in State Invested Pre-K programs and 3,246 students in other public pre-K programs.
MDE officials said the 2025-26 results should not be compared with scores from previous years because a new standard was established to align with higher expectations on the third-grade assessment.
Teachers use the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment as an instructional baseline to help tailor lessons and services for pre-K and kindergarten students. The assessment also helps measure how well pre-K programs prepare 4-year-old children for kindergarten.
MDE said it plans to provide professional development aligned with the science of reading, expand access to high-quality instructional materials, implement pre-K-to-kindergarten transition plans and provide teachers with assessment reports to guide instruction.