While blue states’ education leaders have been debating who has bathroom access or engaging in struggle sessions about biological boys playing in girls’ sports, the state of Mississippi, once considered a backwater for learning, has seen its test scores improve dramatically. Reporting for National Review, Rich Lowry, its long-time editor, wrote, “Mississippi went from 49th in fourth grade reading results on the National Assessment about a decade ago to ninth in 2024. Its low-income children are ranked first in the nation. Its black kids are number three in the nation and its Hispanic kids number one. Overall, when adjusted for socioeconomics and demographics, Mississippi has the best fourth-grade results in the nation.” How has the Magnolia State pulled off this so-called miracle?
PHONICS
Most children learn to read using a basic reading strategy called phonics, which teaches kids to read by matching the sounds of spoken English to individual letters or groups of letters. It focuses on the alphabetic principle, the idea that letters represent specific sounds. In the 1980s, a new theory called whole language supplanted phonics as the preferred way to teach literacy. Whole language practitioners believed in the natural acquisition of language. If books and “authentic” literature naturally surrounded children, they would “pick up” reading skills through exposure and social interaction. In effect, early readers were encouraged to look at a “whole” text before focusing on letters and sounds. Ironically, while the different pillars of language (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) were to be taught together, report cards broke the English grade down into four separate sections despite the attempt to call the approach “integrated literacy.” The problems with the whole language philosophy led to poor spelling habits, lower test scores, and functional illiteracy. It turned out that children needed structure to learn how to read. They also needed to “crack the code” of reading, so to speak. Unsurprisingly, after breaking the “code”, focusing on comprehension occurs more easily. Mixing the two created challenges that seemed double for boys, a whole other topic.
RETENTION & ACCOUNTABILITY
A reading crisis left Mississippi’s children far behind proficiency standards. In 2011, about four out of five fourth graders in Mississippi failed to meet the standard in state testing. Following the revelation of these results, the state legislature felt compelled to implement educational reforms, culminating in the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), a key component of which was the strict requirement that third-grade students must achieve a passing score on a reading assessment to be promoted to the fourth grade. Drawn from the 2002 Florida initiative called “Just Read, Florida,” passed by the administration of Governor Jeb Bush, these ideas encompassed the following principles:
- Any student displaying a substantial reading deficiency in Kindergarten through Grade 3 must receive intensive reading intervention.
- Schools are required to notify parents about any substantial reading deficiency or if a student is below reading grade level.
- Students with deficiencies must receive evidence-based, explicit, systematic, and multisensory reading instruction covering phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
- Any student who does not demonstrate adequate reading proficiency by the end of third grade may be held back.
- Students retained, or those with significant deficiencies, receive intensive reading support, including summer reading camps.
- The law requires 90 minutes of daily, uninterrupted reading instruction and intensive intervention for those in need.
Kelsey Piper, a staff writer for The Argument, recently launched Oakland LEARN, a microschool in Oakland. Her recent reporting focuses on U.S. literacy trends. Piper argues that Mississippi outperforms her native California, even though it spends about half as much on education as the Golden State does. As an example, Piper points to Mississippi, where over half of black fourth graders score above grade level in reading, while only 28 per cent do so in California. “We have been spending lots of money on schools,” Piper writes of blue states, “but we have not been willing to muster the political will and effort necessary to hold those schools accountable for results and adopt teaching practices that actually work.” Rigorous expectations mean that if a parent or teacher identifies a child as at risk of retention, they will move heaven and earth to get that student help. Evidence also shows that siblings benefit from this level of high standards. Refusing to accept poor results has shown that a miracle is just as likely where hard work, commitment, and old-school tactics endure.
REJECTING THE LIBERAL HEGEMONY IN EDUCATION
The long-held shibboleth that liberals and progressives care more about education has rested on the idea of investment. In 2019, blue states (Ontario would be like a blue state) scored higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores in all four sections of testing: 4th and 8th grade reading and math. By 2024, the red states had taken the lead in three of the four areas. Of course, don’t expect the dominant media to report on it. Progressive social commentators don’t like writing about educational stories when unions are excluded. There were efforts to discredit the scores, that statistics were being manipulated in these southern states to make things look better than they were. Some even going on a tirade about Mississippi’s health care policies, its failure to expand Obamacare, the state’s willingness to allow non unionized workers to work in traditionally unionized jobs, and its abysmally low minimum wage. What does this have to do with education?
If government funding falls short of the laundry list that defines the progressive social contract, according to many educators and their union sponsors, students cannot achieve successful results, and it’s unreasonable to expect them to. Hunger or anxiety are obstacles to learning. How can a child whose family lacks healthcare and dental coverage, or adequate housing, learn? Educators who have become activists insist that children’s academic performance depends on these needs being met, or their scholastic success will suffer. Mississippi proves otherwise, but progressives hate to hear it, as Noah Rothman ( Why Can’t the Left See The Mississippi Miracle?) puts it, “To do so would be to concede that the most pilloried state in the Union — the butt of every progressive joke about the hill folk who populate flyover country — is beating the left at what it believes is one of its core competencies.”
Piper, to her credit, continues to report the evidence, though it contradicts her philosophical leanings. Rothman asks three questions that deserve answers within the educational-industrial complex in the United States, Canada, and beyond. If the redistributive class has it wrong about aggregate educational success depending on a progressive social contract, what does that tell us about teachers’ unions? What does that say about its political partners? What does it say about the usefulness or worth of the progressive social contract? Until our educational bureaucrats, progressive unions, and teacher activists get honest about robust programs with intentional outcomes, classroom accountability, and evidence-based teaching, the results will remain disappointing and recurrent.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
