Mississippi models successful education reform

In 2013, Mississippi was ranked as the second-worst state for fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the primary measure of childhood literacy. In 2022, Mississippi had moved up all the way to 21st. Lawmakers attributed this rapid gain to the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), passed in 2013, which emphasized better training for teachers coupled with earlier identification of reading deficiencies and greater support for struggling students. Many states across the southern United States have either implemented changes resembling Mississippi’s reforms or are considering doing so. Mississippi has also received criticism for exaggerating the supposed success of the LBPA, however, and the law’s retention policies might disproportionately impact low-income students. The debate over Mississippi’s imperfect reading reforms offers an important case study of how to craft good education policy and what mistakes policymakers should avoid. Namely, Mississippi succeeded because it increased support for teachers and students using consensus methods.

Mississippi’s increase in test scores was initially heralded by news outlets and commentators, who dubbed it the “Mississippi Miracle” (Lurye 2023; Kristof 2023). This praise was met with pushback, however. LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik argued this miracle was instead a mere mirage and the result of Mississippi gaming the test evaluating reading skills (Hiltzik 2023). As a component of the LBPA, third graders who were unable to read at a sufficient level would be held back, a policy which Hiltzik contended Mississippi used to cull its underperforming students to artificially inflate its NAEP scores. The journalist Kevin Drum scrutinized this claim, finding that the LBPA led to only a negligible increase in the average age of Mississippi’s fourth grade classes (Drum 2023). This result indicates that Hiltzik’s concern is unfounded, and the Mississippi Miracle is likely legitimate.

It is therefore worth deciphering why Mississippi’s reading reforms succeeded before considering how policymakers can extrapolate from Mississippi. The LBPA made three major changes to how Mississippi was teaching reading. First, it strengthened the reading support for students in kindergarten through third grade. Teachers received more intensive training, schools were outfitted with reading coaches, and students were assessed at the beginning and end of each school year with individualized reading plans created by the parent(s) and teacher for students deemed deficient. Second, students who did not read at a third grade level by the end of that year would be retained for an additional year to strengthen their academic abilities (“Mississippi Literacy-Based Promotion Act Frequently Asked Questions for K-3 Parents” n.d., Hensley et al. 2019). Third, the LBPA placed a heavy emphasis on standardized phonics-based instruction; academic research has consistently found phonics are the best way to teach children to read, particularly those who are struggling (Sohn 2020). Mississippi’s changes were based heavily on a 2002 law in Florida, which saw the state’s students improve their reading scores to some of the highest in the United States (Lurye 2023).

The natural conclusion from Mississippi’s success, then, would be that every state struggling with reading should copy the above three changes. Mostly, that interpretation is correct. Mississippi passed a law rooted strongly in the policies favored by academic research: better support for teachers and students and an emphasis on phonics. What happened in Mississippi, however, is less of a miracle because it was groundbreaking and more because the policies were unusually successful. While other states have enacted similar standards, they have seen much more tepid improvement (Barnum 2023). Within Mississippi, this policy also worked imperfectly. Further research is needed to properly understand the disparate impact of Misssippi’s retention policies; but, in Florida, the model state for Mississippi, third grade retention was applied unequally at the expense of low-income students. Additionally, students within the Mississippi Delta continue to underperform those in most other schools, and there are still wide geographic and demographic disparities in funding (Brenner and Pallas 2023).

Rather than being a magic bullet for solving literacy problems, the Mississippi Miracle is instead another piece of evidence in what researchers in education policy generally agree on: if one wants to improve students’ academic abilities, more administrative and financial support is necessary. Jackson et al. at the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed long-run outcomes such as educational attainment and earnings, rather than test scores, to evaluate the impact of funding in K-12 education. They found small effects of increased funding for affluent families, likely because of greater pre-existing external support, but more dramatic effects for low-income students. In fact, a 25% increase in funding across all school years was sufficient to eliminate the wealth attainment gap and create a functionally equal education for low-income and affluent students. Notably, the authors also found money is a necessary but not sufficient condition to improving education outcomes. It is also imperative that schools spend their money to support policy changes known to be effective, namely smaller classes, larger faculties, and higher teacher salaries (Jackson et al. 2015). Research on literacy-specific policies affirmed the importance of not just spending money but also spending this money wisely. The authors found that noncomprehensive early literacy policies provide superficial gains in reading, whereas the best evidence for significant increases in reading abilities came in the states with the most comprehensive support for students among 16 popular policy components, including those that Mississippi instituted (Westall and Cummings 2023).

Mississippi is a model for policymakers on how to approach education reform given its successful implementation of a comprehensive strategy to improve its students' reading abilities. Adopting Mississippi’s policies and expecting identical results would be a mistake, however, both because other states have already failed to do so and because Mississippi’s reforms did not fully address socioeconomic inequalities in its education system. Rather, the takeaway for policymakers should be to increase support for educators and students to the greatest extent feasible and to prioritize the fundamental aspects of education policy that we know work. Furthermore, policymakers must be willing to adapt to problems that may arise and iterate on a successful reform that still falls short of all its goals. Mississippi has not yet eliminated socioeconomic attainment gaps, and its education system will consequently continue to require additional efforts and resources. But by more adequately funding its reading programs, and allocating its money carefully, the state was able to dramatically and unexpectedly improve childhood literacy.

The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Rice Journal of Public Policy, its staff, or its Editorial Board.

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References

Barnum, Matt. “Mississippi Made Big Test Score Gains. Here’s What to Make of Them.” Chalkbeat, Chalkbeat, 18 July 2023, www.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/18/23799124/mississippi-miracle-test-scores-naep-early-literacy-grade-retention-reading-phonics.

Brenner, Devon, and Aaron Pallas. “Opinion: Lessons from Mississippi: Is There Really a Miracle Here We Can All Learn From?” The Hechinger Report, The Hechinger Report, 14 Aug. 2023, hechingerreport.org/opinion-lessons-from-mississippi-is-there-really-a-miracle-here-we-can-all-learn-from/.

Drum, Kevin. “Mississippi Revisited: The Mississippi Reading Miracle Looks to Be Real after All.” Jabberwocking, Kevin Drum, 15 July 2023, jabberwocking.com/mississippi-revisited-the-mississippi-reading-miracle-looks-to-be-real-after-all/.

Hensley, Trudy, et al. “MISSISSIPPI’S LITERACY-BASED PROMOTION ACT: An Inside Look.” Foundation for Excellence in Education, Foundation for Excellence in Education, Feb. 2019, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED613758.pdf.

Hiltzik, Michael. “Column: How Mississippi Gamed Its National Reading Test Scores to Produce ‘miracle’ Gains.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2023, www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-07-03/how-mississippi-gamed-national-reading-test-to-produce-miracle-gains.

Jackson, C. Kirabo, et al. “The effects of school spending on educational and economic outcomes: Evidence from school finance reforms.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Papers Series, Jan. 2015, https://doi.org/10.3386/w20847.

Kristof, Nicholas. “Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 31 May 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html.

Lurye, Sharon. “‘Mississippi Miracle’: Kids’ Reading Scores Have Soared in Deep South States.” AP News, AP News, 17 May 2023, apnews.com/article/reading-scores-phonics-mississippi-alabama-louisiana-5bdd5d6ff719b23faa37db2fb95d5004.

“Mississippi Literacy-Based Promotion Act Frequently Asked Questions for K-3 Parents.” Science Lookup, Science for Georgia, sciencelookup.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/mde_lbpa_faqs.pdf. Accessed 11 Sept. 2023.

Sohn, Emily. “It’s Time to Stop Debating How to Teach Kids to Read and Follow the Science.” Science News, Society for Science & the Public, 26 Apr. 2020, www.sciencenews.org/article/balanced-literacy-phonics-teaching-reading-evidence.

Westall, John, and Amy Cummings. “The effects of early literacy policies on student achievement.” Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, 2023, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4427675.