Vicksburg Junior High teachers Kensal Batty and April Gross, above, and, at right, members of New School dance during a pep rally to get the school’s nearly 700 students ready to take the Mississippi Curriculum Test 2 that began Tuesday and runs through Thursday. The language arts and math test, administered to third- through eighth-graders statewide, is a way of measuring progress. Results will be returned later in the summer. The test is required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which aims to improve schools’ performance by increasing accountability standards at the state, district and school levels. (Meredith Spencer*The Vicksburg Post)