{"id":59243,"date":"2025-04-27T17:19:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=59243"},"modified":"2025-04-27T17:19:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:19:53","slug":"making-schools-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=59243","title":{"rendered":"Making Schools Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Daily Caller<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves detailed how conservative education reform led his state\u2019s school system to achieve some of the best outcomes in the country, a phenomenon dubbed the \u201cMississippi Miracle,\u201d in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Associated Press in 2023 referred to the state\u2019s skyrocketing test scores<\/a> for fourth graders as the \u201cMississippi Miracle,\u201d explaining<\/a>, \u201cMississippi went from being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for fourth-grade reading to 21st in 2022.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Reeves credits getting \u201cback to the basics\u201d for his state\u2019s soaring educational outcomes. In 2013, while Reeves was serving as lieutenant governor, Mississippi passed sweeping education reform legislation, including the \u201cThird Grade Reading Gate,\u201d mandating that schools hold back children who don\u2019t meet certain reading standards before the end of third grade. The state reintroduced phonics<\/a> \u2014 teaching students to sound out words \u2014 in its reading education and spent $15 million a year on reading coaches.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The percentage of students who both failed the test and were held back from advancing to the third grade decreased<\/a> from 9% in 2019 to 6.5% in 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe other side went crazy \u2026 they said, \u2018well, we\u2019re going to have to hold back half of our students,’\u201d Reeves recalled. \u201cNo, we raised the level of expectations and Mississippians did what Mississippians do \u2014 they rose up and they met those increased expectations.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 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,\u201d Reeves added.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to the new testing requirements, Mississippi also added new charter schools, created an Educational Savings Account (ESA) program<\/a> 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not a miracle at all,\u201d the governor asserted. \u201cIt\u2019s really a result of conservative reforms implemented in public education \u2014 they\u2019re making a huge difference for kids.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

We need this in North Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[763,17961,7658,14609,17962,17960,7015,17963],"class_list":["post-59243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education","tag-fourth-graders","tag-mississippi","tag-mississippi-governor-tate-reeves","tag-mississippi-miracle","tag-reading","tag-the-daily-caller","tag-third-grade-reading-gate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59244,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59243\/revisions\/59244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}