“Thank God for Mississippi.”
That’s been a standard refrain from officials used to defend their states’ national education rankings. The South in general has been a punching bag for those who wouldn’t own up to their own deficiencies.
Well, they can’t say that anymore.
Mississippi, which at one time was ranked 49th in fourth-grade reading, skyrocketed to 21st last year, the Associated Press reported. And things are also looking up in Louisiana and Alabama.,
There have been promising gains for low-income students in particular. In 2019, Alabama ranked 49th in National Assessment of Education Progress reading scores for low-income fourth graders and in 2022 it ranked 27th. Louisiana went from 42nd to 11th. Mississippi ranks second-highest in the country, after Florida.
How did this happen? Mississippi has struggled for years with poverty and very low literacy rates. Then in 2013 the state passed much-needed legislation modeled after a 2002 Florida law that helped that state record some of the nation’s highest reading scores, the AP said.
Here are some of the things they did:
Musings of a Nobody 