I saw an article recently about Mississippi (and/or Alabama?) 4th graders beating out California and New York on reading, and many were crediting that the state mandated phonics over this “take a guess” nonsense.
Yes! MS went from 49th to 9th in like 10 years. Most people are crediting it to phonics and their willingness to hold students back if they don’t learn the material.
Something about holding students back seems like it might artificially inflate numbers. Like, if they administer a test in 4th grade while keeping the kids who are struggling in 3rd grade, well only the kids who made it to 4th grade are taking the test.
I dont think you are. Having higher requirements for 4th grade definitely bumps the results up, question is by how much? Not that many students are held back, no idea how much they would contribute to the statistic
I thought about that too, but I would imagine a LOT of students would’ve had to be held back to make this kind of impact on the state average. I would bet that the pressure it applied to students, schools, and parents did most of the heavy lifting.
I used to be a teacher. In my state, before COVID, 3rd grade is the grade that you don’t pass if you don’t hit certain criteria for literacy. After COVID, they didn’t hold anyone back due to an emergency executive order from the Guvnah. Pretty much all the teachers I worked with hated it and believed that holding kids back was beneficial to all.
Where? This isn’t something I’ve seen in CA schoolwork. My teacher friends have a lot of problems with matriculation right now but guessing at definitions isn’t one of them.
I heard about this too, and it’s so insane.
I saw an article recently about Mississippi (and/or Alabama?) 4th graders beating out California and New York on reading, and many were crediting that the state mandated phonics over this “take a guess” nonsense.
Am I reading this correctly? MS (and/or AL) having a better reading education system than CA & NY with this?? Wow.
Yes! MS went from 49th to 9th in like 10 years. Most people are crediting it to phonics and their willingness to hold students back if they don’t learn the material.
Something about holding students back seems like it might artificially inflate numbers. Like, if they administer a test in 4th grade while keeping the kids who are struggling in 3rd grade, well only the kids who made it to 4th grade are taking the test.
I’m likely wrong.
I dont think you are. Having higher requirements for 4th grade definitely bumps the results up, question is by how much? Not that many students are held back, no idea how much they would contribute to the statistic
I thought about that too, but I would imagine a LOT of students would’ve had to be held back to make this kind of impact on the state average. I would bet that the pressure it applied to students, schools, and parents did most of the heavy lifting.
I used to be a teacher. In my state, before COVID, 3rd grade is the grade that you don’t pass if you don’t hit certain criteria for literacy. After COVID, they didn’t hold anyone back due to an emergency executive order from the Guvnah. Pretty much all the teachers I worked with hated it and believed that holding kids back was beneficial to all.
Where? This isn’t something I’ve seen in CA schoolwork. My teacher friends have a lot of problems with matriculation right now but guessing at definitions isn’t one of them.
There were a bunch of articles when the data came out from the NAEP report card. Most I saw were mentioning phonics as the biggest factor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/mississippi-schools-transformation
https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/mississippi-not-california-is-the-education-future/
It’s often being referred to as the “Mississippi Miracle” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Miracle