Progressive public schools in the northeast, Midwest and West Coast are failing fast. Meanwhile, their Southern counterparts show significant achievement gains.
Let that sink in for a moment. For generations—perhaps going back to the days just after the Civil War—Southern schools were generally considered the worst of the worst.
A Remarkable Reversal
A recent article in The New York Times shows the change in dramatic terms.
“Schools in blue states like California, Oregon and Washington are languishing, but schools in red states like Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana…are suddenly doing remarkably well. Roughly 52 percent of Mississippi’s Black fourth graders read at grade level, compared with only 28 percent in California. Louisiana is the only state where fourth-grade achievement levels have returned to prepandemic levels…. [S]chools in Mississippi are educating their fourth graders more successfully in math and reading than schools in any other state.”
Nor is the Times the only outlet that has noticed the juxtaposition. In fact, a left-leaning education-oriented site called “The 74” refers to a “Mississippi Miracle“ that bears considerable examination.
“[Ten] states—Arkansas, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Florida, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland—have seen the gap between their best and their worst readers widen by more than 20 points since 2013…. But one state is bucking this trend: Mississippi.”
A Simple, Understandable Plan
The question naturally arises—how did they do it?
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One thing is certain: they didn’t spend their way out of the hole. In terms of personal income, Mississippi is the poorest state in the country, and only three other states spend less on their schools.
Mississippi’s plan began with a new law, the “Literacy Based Promotion Act,” passed in 2013. As educrats tend to be long-winded (even when not saying very much), this document is a bit of a horse-choker. The official document, as revised in 2016, runs to 132 pages.
Notwithstanding all of the ‘edu-speak’ in the document, the plan can be boiled down to a few easily-understood ideas.
Simple Steps, Intelligently Taken
The first step was to determine who could read on grade level and who could not. The state accomplished this task with a “universal screening assessment” given to all children in kindergarten through third grade.
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Next, the state deployed specially trained reading coaches to the schools with the largest percentage of low-performing students. Their main job was to train teachers to teach children to read.
Certain children had reading deficiencies beyond the teacher’s ability to deal with in a classroom setting. These children received intensive interventions with trained reading specialists.
Ultimately, the state mandated that any child who could not read on a basic level by the end of third grade would have to repeat the grade. During this second year, schools were required to create an Individual Reading Plan to address each child’s issues with reading and strategies to overcome them.
In 2016, the state amended the original law in two ways. They moved the passing grade slightly upward. Then, they required that every new elementary school teacher pass a course in reading assessment and specific methods of reading instruction.
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However, far more important than the plan itself is the attitude with which Mississippi put it into effect.
Uncommon Attitudes…
First, the plan did not search out students with specific identity characteristics. It did not use such identifiers as race, sex or home income to identify who needed help. They knew that children didn’t deserve more or less help because of who they were. Each and every student took the assessment at the end of kindergarten, first, second and third grades.
Second, there was only one issue at hand: the reading ability of each child. There was a notable absence of the kind of material designed to orient children to embrace left-of-center ideologies. When parents identify an attempt to indoctrinate their children, their understandable resentments interfere with the school’s ability to teach their children anything.
Third, the schools stuck with the plan long enough for it to work. Notice that the law was first passed twelve years ago, in 2013. Often, such plans take years to write and then more years to implement. This fact is unfortunate, but unescapable. The Mississippi plan was hobbled by the fact that COVID closed many schools for over a year. The temptation must have been strong to abandon it and try something else—maybe something with more “bells and whistles.” Fortunately, they did not. The plan was simple, workable and flexible enough to meet and overcome unforeseen difficulties. Doubtless, COVID delayed the desired improvement, but did not prevent it.
…Backed Up With Common Sense
There is also one final reason for the plan’s success, one that may surprise many. There were no screens or gimmicks. The progressive thinking that often dominates such plans was largely absent. The simple fact is that humanity has known how to teach the young to read for centuries. Mississippi used tried-and-true, not to mention low-cost, methods to set aside the nonsense and teach its children to read.
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That attitude is a victory in itself. Other red states are following suit. Perhaps the “Mississippi Miracle” will be replicated in more states, even those in the Northeast and along the West Coast.
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