Government agencies have a way of making things more complicated than they should be.

So it’s no surprise that the long-awaited information released by the Mississippi Department of Education last week is nothing more than gobbledygook to the average Joe taxpayer.

Most Mississippians — Americans even — have grown accustomed to measuring the success of their children, local schools and education in general by state test scores.

The students take the standardized test once a year and the scores come in waves in the months after the test. Parents and principals get scores for individual students as soon as a month or so after the test.

But the giant compilation of confusing numbers used to measure the success of a school or a district as a whole usually comes later.

Those number were made public last week.

The state releases charts that show the percentage of students that scored minimal, basic, proficient or advanced in reading, math and language on the Mississippi Curriculum Test.

Minimal and basic are essentially failing. Proficient or advanced mean students are performing on grade level or better.

But the numbers come in so many categories and with so little explanation from the state that they actually don’t tell us much of anything.

I like to measure growth in our local schools by seeing if they improved or declined from the previous year. I rarely compare us to the state level, because Natchez schools are traditionally about 10 percentage points behind in every category. It would be unreasonable to expect the schools to make up those 10 points in any one given year.

But the year-to-year comparison doesn’t show much either. What’s up in one grade in one subject is down in the next. Most improvements or declines aren’t significant — more than 3 or 4 points. And it’s hard for someone without a doctorate in education to draw conclusions from the gobbledygook.

So, no one does. The average taxpayer doesn’t spend any time reviewing the scores. Even parents with children in the school system are unlikely to even know the scores were released.

If the goal of the system is to offer a report card to the public, well, the system is broken.

In a few weeks, the schools will get labels that sum up the pile of numbers into a numeric level, 1 through 4. The average Joe much more easily digests that information.

The state should cut to the chase and release the numeric levels on the same day as the test scores.

And while government makes things complicated, average Joes know how to simplify things.

The key to test scores is not the massive compilation. No one should rely on the numbers to tell them whether their schools are succeeding.

The answer to the big picture lies in the individual.

The only way to track success is to watch each child. If each parent takes responsibility for watching their own child’s test scores, then the group compilation doesn’t matter.

If little Suzy scored better this year than last year, then you know things are going well. If Bobby dropped math but went up in reading, well, get him a math tutor — the schools offer some level of tutoring for free.

Parents must focus on their children and work alongside teachers to improve areas of weakness. If each parent gets involved, then the group will improve and the flaws of the state test score reporting system won’t matter.

The same goes for community members who want to stay involved in the future of our children. Don’t focus on the group; focus on the individual. Find a child close to you and track their progress.

The Natchez group scores will never improve if the individual scores don’t go up first.

Julie Finley is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or Julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.