Bob Griffin: The Mississippi education miracle

By BOB GRIFFIN

Mississippi has become a national leader in K-12 education student outcomes. Alaskans should be encouraged that we could do the same, if we embrace a similar reform mentality. 

The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, has just been released by the US Department of Education — and Mississippi continues to be a powerhouse.

That’s right – Mississippi with the highest poverty rate in the US, and ranked 44^th in the US in per student spending on K-12 education, according to the National Education Association, leads the nation in several categories. 

In the 2024 NAEP results, Mississippi was ranked first the nation in 4^th grade reading scores for low-income students. Upper/middle-income Mississippi 4^th graders were ranked 2^nd in the nation for reading scores—less than one point behind Massachusetts.

As recently as 2013, Mississippi was ranked 45^th in the US for low-income 4^th grade reading.  

Large increases in K-12 spending weren’t the secret to Mississippi’s success. According to figures from the NEA, between 2004 and 2022, Mississippi increased per student spending 69%, compared to a 79% increase in Alaska. 

The fantastic results in Mississippi give hope to our kids in Alaska that similar types of improvement could happen in our state with the adoption of the Alaska Reads Act, which closely models major reform legislation passed in Mississippi just a decade ago . 

In addition, Mississippi is a national leader in the support for healthy competition in K-12 education through one of the best supported charter school laws in the US and expanding school choice opportunities. Mississippi is ranked 7^th in the US for support of schools by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Alaska is ranked 44^th out of the 46 states that allow charter schools.  

The Mississippi’s dramatic improvements in early childhood literacy are also having a very positive impact middle school reading scores, as well as math scores. In the 2024 results, Mississippi was 2^nd in the nation for NAEP low-income 4^th graders in math and 3^rd for upper/middle income students. For 8^th grade reading and math for low-income students Mississippi ranked 10^th out of 50 states and DC in both categories. Upper/middle income Mississippi 8^th graders have also improved dramatically, but still have room to grow with rankings of 22^nd in math and 39^th in reading in 2024. 

Alaska still has a long way to go, but is starting to trend in the right direction with the implementation of the 2022 Alaska Reads Act. The NAEP results in 2024 was the first year in the last 20 years that Alaska was not dead last in the nation in any reading or math category. 

Prior to Covid in 2019, low-income 4^th graders in Alaska ranked 51^st (dead last) out of the 50 states and DC, by a very wide margin — with scores that were roughly equivalent an entire grade level behind Alabama (ranked 50^th).  In 2024, Alaska students have climbed to 49^th in the US and are one of the only groups in the US to actually see their NAEP scale scores increase through the Covid learning-loss years.

Ranking 49^th is still a horrible outcome — but it is a dramatic relative improvement, given how very far behind they were. 

The stagnation in Alaska NAEP reading test scores appears especially acute in students from upper/middle-income families– compared to the modest gains seen by Alaska kids from low-income families. A reasonable explanation for the flat scores for Alaska’s affluent kids is the fact that in the post-Covid era, Alaska saw a doubling of students in correspondence programs. Alaska now has 17% of public-school student enrolled in correspondence allotment programs – by far the highest rate in the US. The #2 state in correspondence enrollment has less than 5%. These generally high-performing correspondence students, with highly motivated parents, do not participate in NAEP testing. Their absence in the NAEP results masks an overall general improvement in reading scores for our more affluent kids, when compared to internal state testing. 

In Alaska, our kids are just as bright, our teachers are just as dedicated and our parents love their kids just as much as parents in Mississippi. The dramatic difference between the outcomes in our two states is because of the courage that Mississippi lawmakers have shown to embrace and reinforce reforms to make their kids more successful than ours.

If we simply increase K-12 funding without including reforms that have worked well in other states, we will continue to have one of the most expensive and poorest performing school systems in the country.   

Bob Griffin is a former member of the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development.