On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about what has happened in the Mississippi schools since 2013, when they were ranked the second-worst state in fourth-grade reading to first in the country in 2024.
The article reports:
Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves detailed how conservative education reform led his state’s school system to achieve some of the best outcomes in the country, a phenomenon dubbed the “Mississippi Miracle,” in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.
The Associated Press in 2023 referred to the state’s skyrocketing test scores for fourth graders as the “Mississippi Miracle,” explaining, “Mississippi went from being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for fourth-grade reading to 21st in 2022.”
An updated National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card from 2024 shows Mississippi leading the nation in demographic-adjusted 4th- and 8th-grade scores and it went viral on social media.
…Reeves credits getting “back to the basics” for his state’s soaring educational outcomes. In 2013, while Reeves was serving as lieutenant governor, Mississippi passed sweeping education reform legislation, including the “Third Grade Reading Gate,” mandating that schools hold back children who don’t meet certain reading standards before the end of third grade. The state reintroduced phonics — teaching students to sound out words — in its reading education and spent $15 million a year on reading coaches.
The percentage of students who both failed the test and were held back from advancing to the third grade decreased from 9% in 2019 to 6.5% in 2023.
“The other side went crazy … they said, ‘well, we’re going to have to hold back half of our students,’” Reeves recalled. “No, we raised the level of expectations and Mississippians did what Mississippians do — they rose up and they met those increased expectations.”
The article concludes:
“By the way, our high school graduation rates during this time have risen from 72% of our kids graduated from high school to, last year, 89.9% of our kids are graduating high school,” Reeves added.
In addition to the new testing requirements, Mississippi also added new charter schools, created an Educational Savings Account (ESA) program for parents of children with disabilities so they can put their children in programs designed to meet their needs, and followed Florida in providing letter grade ratings for public schools.
“It’s really not a miracle at all,” the governor asserted. “It’s really a result of conservative reforms implemented in public education — they’re making a huge difference for kids.”
We need this in North Carolina.