Tipsheet

'Mississippi Miracle:' How a Deep South State Has Dramatically Improved Education and Student Performance

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  April 10, 2025 10:30 AM

Earlier this year, a Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum summarized the latest data from America's annual national 'report card' on education, warning that math and reading scores represent a "five-alarm fire," as "America’s public schools are plunging our country into an epidemic of illiteracy and innumeracy."  The starkest result found that "one in every three 8th graders are functionally illiterate," which should be a national scandal. "As 'below basic' readers, millions of teenagers struggle to extract meaning from words on a page," the piece explained. "As a result, putting a textbook in front of them is pointless. These students are on the brink of adulthood, and yet they stand no chance of understanding an employment contract or a lease agreement. They cannot comprehend articles like the one you’re reading right now."  Reading scores for these middle schoolers have been declining for more than a decade, very much predating the pandemic implosion, which exacerbated a number of negative trends.

The Department of Education referred to the outcomes as "heartbreaking," but the proper response to these failures is anger.  Outrageously, yet unsurprisingly, scores were especially atrocious in some of the major cities that long been dominated by powerful teachers unions and their bought-off political protectors:

Achievement gaps are especially severe in big-city districts where teacher union bosses are calling the shots. In Detroit, nearly two-thirds of eighth graders are “below basic” readers.  In Baltimore, 71% of eighth graders are “below basic” in math. It is a sad irony that the districts most loudly dedicated to “equity” are the districts where minority students are suffering the most. There is no “equity agenda” that does more for minority kids than teaching them how to read and do math. Sadly, inner-city schools are failing miserably at their core mission.


In Chicago, where the teachers unions bankrolled the campaign of failed Mayor Brandon Johnson, the unions are being rewarded with major taxpayer-funded pay increases.  "Expenses will rise by as much as $125 million in the current fiscal year, the first year of the contract. Teachers will get raises of at least 16% over the four years, with possible increases due to inflation," Bloomberg reports.  Illinois Democrats, meanwhile, are moving to launch an attack on home schooling, as if that's the problem.  In any case, there's an unlikely bright spot emerging amidst this gloom, representing real progress based on a back-to-basics, accountability-focused approach to teaching and developing children:


'Demographic-adjusted' means the data "adjusts for gender, age, race, ethnicity, free and reduced-price lunch status, special-education status, and English-language-learner status."  Incidentally, by contrast, "Oregon, with the lowest demographic-adjusted scores, has a Board of Education that has indefinitely 'paused' since 2020 the use of any standardized test as a graduation requirement."  Oregon is perhaps the 'wokest' state in the country, and its standards (or lack thereof) have pushed scores to the bottom of the demographic-adjusted pile.  Mississippi, however, has required classic phonics-based reading instruction, as well as significantly curtailing social promotion. That state's results have shot to the very top of the list.  Writer Steve Sailer offers some analysis:

One surprise is that Mississippi, so long the subject of “Thank God for Mississippi” exclamations from rival states struggling to stay out of last place on various measures, has lately reached the middle of the pack with a 245, for 29th place, ahead of much richer [states]. Mississippi’s students are 43% white, 47% black, and only 1% Asian...The Mississippi Miracle is number 1 after adjusting for its unpromising demographics, with comparable Louisiana in second. The Mississippi Department of Education’s press release boasts of Mississippi’s striking improvement since the legislature passed a number of laws in 2013 (modeled on Florida’s 2002 reforms) to get serious about teaching reading and math...

Louisiana followed Mississippi’s lead, with comparable payoffs. Alabama has more recently followed its neighbors, which seems to have lifted Alabama’s test scores from awful to not-so-hot. Time will tell if Alabama follows its neighbors Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida into the adjusted top ten....Worst on the demographically adjusted list is Oregon, which has perhaps the highest percentage of truly Woke crazies in the country. Unadjusted, Oregon outscored the country on 8th grade math by 8 points in 2000, but trailed by 4 points in 2024...How is Mississippi doing it? How is demographically blessed Oregon botching up so badly? Is there a correlation between how states vote and how well their schools work?

The answer to that last question, it seems, is yes.  While many Americans were lamenting the national 'report card' scores overall, Mississippi officials were celebrating major improvements, including the following: 

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  • Highest-ever rate of students scoring proficient or advanced in all four tests: 4th and 8th grade reading and math
  • No. 1 in the nation for achieving highest score increases in 4th grade reading and math since 2013
  • No. 9 in the nation for overall 4th grade reading scores and No. 16 for 4th grade math scores (up from No. 49 and No. 50 in 2013)
  • Mississippi is one of only 13 states with gains in 4th grade math, which is the only subject and grade nationally that showed statistically significant improvements since 2022

There's this nugget, too:

  • Notably, African American, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged Mississippi 4th graders outperform their peers nationally. African American students rank No. 3 in the nation for reading and math scores, Hispanic students rank No. 1 for reading and No. 2 for math, and economically disadvantaged 4th graders rank No. 1 in reading and No. 2 for math.

So what happened?  How has Mississippi gotten from being a national punchline with truly abysmal results to rising through the ranks and up the charts?

Mississippi enacted three major education reform laws in 2013 that established the state’s first state-funded pre-K program, made reading instruction a major focus in pre-K through grade 3, and mandated that schools and districts earn annual A-F grades based on their students’ progress and achievement. At that time, Mississippi 4th graders ranked No. 49 in the nation for NAEP reading scores and No. 50 for NAEP math. Today, NAEP’s unrounded rankings show Mississippi 4th grade reading scores rank No. 9 in the nation and 4th grade math scores rank No. 16.

Literacy coaches were deployed to underperforming and failing schools.  New policy also allowed "up to 15 charter schools a year to start in low-performing, D- and F-rated districts, without local school board approval." Here is a more in-depth summary from 2023, when the upticks in performance were already highly noticeable:

Much of Mississippi’s legislation was based on a 2002 law in Florida that saw the Sunshine State achieve some of the country’s highest reading scores. The states also still have far to go to make sure every child can read. But the country has taken notice of what some have called the Mississippi miracle...[Mississippi and other states] have trained thousands of teachers in the so-called science of reading, which refers to the most proven, research-backed methods of teaching reading. They’ve dispatched literacy coaches to help teachers implement that training, especially in low-performing schools. They also aim to catch problems early. That means screening for signs of reading deficiencies or dyslexia as early as kindergarten, informing parents if a problem is found and giving those kids extra support. The states have consequences in place if schools don’t teach kids how to read, but also offer help to keep kids on track. Mississippi, for one, holds students back in third grade if they cannot pass a reading test but also gives them multiple chances to pass after intensive tutoring and summer literacy camps. 

Alabama will adopt a similar retention policy next school year. It also sent over 30,000 struggling readers to summer literacy camps last year. Half of those students tested at grade level by the end of the summer. The state requires every K-3 teacher, elementary principal and assistant principal to take a 55-hour training course in the science of reading...During a recent session with four second-grade girls, Brown had the girls spell “crib,” asking, “What are the sounds you hear?” Like a choir, they chanted back four individual sounds, counting them with their fingers: “c-rrr-i-buh.” This was one of the techniques Brown had learned in the training; counting four sounds, or phonemes, gave students a clue that the word had four letters. Increased screening also helped the school identify these girls as needing extra help. “Are y’all ready for a challenge word?” Brown asked, and the girls shouted, “Yeah!” Their faces fell when Brown revealed the word: bedbug. They had no idea what the word even meant. But with Brown’s gentle guidance, the girls broke down the word into six phonemes. They were even ready for another challenge.

The genius of our system is that states serve as laboratories of democracy.  If something is working, other states can follow, and that has been the case down South, with Mississippi following Florida's lead (Florida just ranked number one in education, per US News), then other nearby states chasing Mississippi's example.  The results have been inspiring.  I'll leave you with the observation that it appears some of the best improvements have occurred in places where accountability and constructive flexibility aren't fought tooth and nail by people like this -- who have far less influence over education and the political process than they do elsewhere:  


Go with what actually works, and kick toxic special interests with perverse priorities to the curb.  For the children.  Literally.