How Mississippi Fixed Its Failing Schools

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15 years ago, Mississippi ranked 49th in the country for student literacy. Today, they rank in the top 10 and first in the nation for low-income students. And they accomplished this without increasing education spending.

Georgia Howe (1:16)

In this episode, we speak to two education policy experts about the changes Mississippi made to achieve what's being called the Mississippi miracle.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. And this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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Georgia Howe (2:19)

Joining us first to discuss the Mississippi miracle is Corey DeAngelis, Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Corey, thanks so much for coming on.

Corey DeAngelis (2:26)

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Georgia Howe (2:28)

The state of Mississippi's education system for many years did not have much to brag about. They were placing around 48th, 49th, 50th in the rankings in reading and math, certainly on reading. But something changed about 15 years ago, and people in the education field are calling it now the Mississippi miracle.

So, what does the data show us, and why is it being called the Mississippi miracle?

Corey DeAngelis (2:52)

Yeah, Mississippi jumped in the rankings from basically the bottom of the pack to one of the top states when it comes to reading. And they did some very basic reforms, and guess what they didn't do? They didn't throw more money at the problem. What they did was they stopped passing kids through the system when they weren't even able to read. So they passed a reform in 2013 to not pass people through the system, to say you gotta read by the end of third grade in order to continue. And so basically they got back to basics, and they also included the science of reading in their reforms as well, to get towards phonics based instruction as opposed to whole word learning that's pushed by the teachers unions and lefties. So they've really just focused on the mechanics of how to teach kids how to read, and they didn't need a lot of money to do so.

And the teachers unions basically got out of the way, and families now can celebrate in Mississippi because of the Mississippi miracle. The Urban Institute actually did an analysis on all the states, looking at what, after you control for demographic characteristics across states, like income and race, they found that Mississippi is at the very top of the list when it comes to reading outcomes for primary education students. And so, if you look at places like California in comparison, Governor Tate Reeves has pointed out that black students in Mississippi are about two and a half times as likely, relative to black kids in Gavin Newsom's California, to be able to read proficiently. And so, California is spending a lot more than what they're spending in Mississippi. And yet, the outcomes for disadvantaged youth are doing much better in Mississippi than in California.