NATCHEZ &045; They say they’ve worked harder than ever before, but according to state education predictions, Natchez-Adams School District students may not perform as well in the overall accountability category as they did last year.

In order to meet the No Child Left Behind goal of having every child at &uot;proficient&uot; by 2014, the state is raising the bar used to judge scores from this week’s Mississippi Curriculum Test.

More students must rank in the proficient category than in past years for the school and district to meet required Average Yearly Progress goals.

The percentage &uot;proficient&uot; will increase every three years until 2014 when it will be 100 percent.

Failure to meet AYP goals can send schools in to School Improvement categories that require written success plans and can ultimately end in school takeover.

This year is one of the years where the number of proficient students must jump nearly 10 percentage points or more in every grade level and every subject area.

Superintendent Anthony Morris said the new marks might be hard to meet at first.

&uot;There was a significant jump this year from the last few years,&uot; he said. &uot;It’s hard to say how they will perform on that.&uot;

Part of the new AYP standards require curriculum rigor increases at the state and local levels, something Morris said was normal procedure.

&uot;Our curriculum is continuously revised anyway,&uot; he said. &uot;In Natchez, nearly every summer we have curriculum teams who look at that.&uot;

The state is currently working on a curriculum revision that will last 18 months and recently approved increasing graduation requirements for the ninth-graders of 2008. Freshmen in 2008 and years after that will be required to complete four years of English, math, science and social studies. Two of the math years must be beyond Algebra I and one science course must be lab-based. Economics will be a required social studies class.

&uot;It is no longer a given that you will be handed a high school diploma in Mississippi,&uot; State Superintendent Henry Johnson said Monday in a press release. &uot;Our students are meeting higher standards in high school so they will be able to meet the higher standards demanded of today’s workforce and higher education student.&uot;

Last year, AYP numbers ranked McLaurin Elementary at a Level 2 school, the same as the year before; Morgantown Elementary dropped form a Level 3 to a Level 2; and Robert Lewis Middle School increased its ranking from Level 2 to Level 3, but dropped into School Improvement because it did not meet one category of AYP for the second year in a row.