Mississippi did it. The Hospitality State – or the Magnolia State, if you wish – pulled off what experts say is an education miracle. At a time when many states are falling behind and the nation is struggling to produce literate graduates, Mississippi has proven that a back-to-basics approach to education is the way to ensure America’s youth can read, write, and perform basic math. How did the state achieve what seems to be impossible in today’s world?
Mississippi’s Education Miracle
Tim Daly, co-founder of EdNavigator, quipped in May that Mississippi can't get any respect around here. "You can’t go around saying Maine ought to visit Mississippi to learn how to teach reading. It’s insulting. You could ruin a cocktail party. After all, Maine has Kennebunkport. Mississippi has Biloxi. But that’s exactly what should happen."
A decade ago, Mississippi was near the bottom in several key performance indicators. According to the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, the state ranked at or near the bottom in fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores. The high school graduation rate was around 75%, well below the national average. When examining socioeconomics and demographics, black students performed far lower than their white counterparts. Poor children were left behind.
Ten years later, Mississippi has become a model for success in numerous education areas. Call it the education miracle or the “Mississippi miracle,” but the state is no longer the laughingstock – or the bottom rung of the ladder to make other abysmal states look good.
In the 2024 NAEP report, it ranked first nationally for improvement in fourth-grade reading and math scores over the past decade. It climbed to the ninth spot for fourth-grade reading and No. 16 for fourth-grade math. Moreover, black students rose to No. 3 nationally in both reading and math, while Hispanic students advanced to No. 1 in reading and No. 2 in math. Impecunious students also reached the top of the mountain in both subjects.
And that's not all. The graduation rate in 2024-2025 was 89.2%, up 15 points from a decade ago, and the dropout rate continues declining. Eighty-seven percent of school districts earned a grade of C or higher last year, up from 62% in 2016.
A deeper dive does reveal some hiccups along the way, but the long-term trajectory is impressive.
How It Was Done
It began in 2013 with the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, legislation that emphasized early learning trends for K-3 students by ensuring their attention was focused on phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Put simply, everything that is antithetical to woke education.
The initiative imposed higher standards for teacher certification, deployed reading coaches across the state, and overhauled school and district grading systems to track progress and facilitate interventions when necessary. Rather than leaving older students to fend for themselves upon graduation, the state bolstered postsecondary preparation programs, increased dual enrollment and early college opportunities, and expanded technical education paths.
To ensure its continued success, the state is investing in continued professional development, particularly in literacy and math. It has also established teacher leadership roles to ensure schools can keep the best of the best. The Heritage Foundation's Education Freedom Report Card ranks Mississippi third in teacher freedom, indicating that something is working on this front.
Suffice it to say, Mississippi will not be a flash in the pan.
Not All About the Benjamins
The United States has a spending problem. Collectively, the country spends more than $15,000 per K-12 student, almost 40% higher than the OECD average of $11,300. It trails only Luxembourg ($25,600), Norway ($18,000), Austria ($15,900), and South Korea ($15,900), which collectively account for fewer than 5% of their GDP on education. Several states are outspending the national average, such as New York ($33,437), Massachusetts ($24,359), and Illinois ($21,829). And yet, neither the nation nor these states has received straight A test scores.
Mississippi? It is in the bottom 10 with a little more than $12,000 per K-12 pupil. While it has increased from a decade ago amid inflation, the jump has not been colossal, and it still spends about 20% below the national average.
Teachers' unions will often complain that the government is not spending enough money on education. Politicians heed these rallying cries at election time, sign budgets to boost education expenditures, and conditions fail to improve. Wash, rinse, repeat. Rather than wasting time on administrators and comparing gender to ice cream flavors, Mississippi has proven that it is better to concentrate on the three Rs, not 2SLGBTQIAP+ propaganda.
Oregon Trail
So, while Mississippi is embracing the good old days of teaching, others are engaged in facilitating persistent mediocrity – or failure.
Oregon is a prime example. The West Coast state is implementing new measures to permanently reduce its reliance on test scores. High schools across the state will not be required to prove basic competency in reading, writing, or math to graduate until at least 2029. The Oregon Education Association (OEA), the union representing more than 40,000 teachers throughout the state, says the old way of doing things is no longer effective. "Standardized tests are inaccurate, inequitable, and don’t accurately measure student learning and growth," adding that they are "instruments of racism and a biased system."
You cannot blame the Beaver State for trying to mask its incompetence. Remember that NAEP reading score from last year? Oregon ranked dead last. This is becoming increasingly common these days: red states are outperforming blue states in education without incurring significant costs.
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