Black students in Mississippi are now significantly outperforming black Wisconsin students

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The data is absolutely astounding, and I am sick and tired of seeing TD posters downplay what is happening in LA and MS

You read that right. Mississippi is taking names.

In 2003, only the District of Columbia had more fourth graders in the lowest achievement level on our national reading test (NAEP) than Mississippi.1 By 2024, only four states had fewer.

When the Urban Institute adjusted national test results2 for student demographics, this is where Mississippi ranked:

Fourth grade math: 1st
Fourth grade reading: 1st
Eighth grade math: 1st
Eighth grade reading: 4th
How about Black students? The root of Mississippi’s bad reputation is its historically awful record on civil rights - including its refusal to integrate schools.

That was then.

Now, it has a different story to tell. Black students in Mississippi posted the third highest fourth grade reading scores in the nation. They walloped their counterparts in better-funded states. The average Black student in Mississippi performed about 1.5 grade levels ahead of the average Black student in Wisconsin. Just think about that for a moment. Wisconsin spends about 35 percent more per pupil to achieve worse results.

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Louisiana was the only state to fully erase pandemic learning loss among fourth grade readers. It ranked in the top five for all four NAEP grades/subjects in the demographically adjusted results. Alabama was the only state whose fourth graders beat their pre-COVID performance in math. In years past, notable gains have been posted by Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

These successes have not been wholly unacknowledged. They have been dutifully and perfunctorily name-checked in news stories. Nonetheless, there has been, shall we say, a reluctance among national voices to extol Deep South examples as worthy of emulation by their so-called “better off” peers.3

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. Below are the reading scores for these two states over time. For context, 10 points on NAEP is approximately the equivalent of one grade level. In 2002, students in Mississippi were two years behind students in Maine. Today, they are about a year ahead.

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