Bob Griffin: The Mississippi education miracle

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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 44th 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 4th grade reading scores for low-income students. Upper/middle-income Mississippi 4th graders were ranked 2nd in the nation for reading scores—less than one point behind Massachusetts.

As recently as 2013, Mississippi was ranked 45th in the US for low-income 4th 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 7th in the US for support of schools by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Alaska is ranked 44th 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 2nd in the nation for NAEP low-income 4th graders in math and 3rd for upper/middle income students. For 8th grade reading and math for low-income students Mississippi ranked 10th out of 50 states and DC in both categories. Upper/middle income Mississippi 8th graders have also improved dramatically, but still have room to grow with rankings of 22nd in math and 39th 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 4th graders in Alaska ranked 51st (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 50th).  In 2024, Alaska students have climbed to 49th 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 49th 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.   

2024 NAEP Results:
GradeSubjectEconomic StatusAlaska RankingMississippi Ranking 
4thReading Disadvantaged49th1st
4thMathDisadvantaged49th2nd
4thReadingNot Disadvantaged50th2nd
4thMathNot Disadvantaged50th3rd
8thReadingDisadvantaged50th10th
8thMathDisadvantaged47th10th
8thReadingNot Disadvantaged48th39th
8thMathNot Disadvantaged45th22nd
Rankings are all 50 states and DC

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

23 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmm(???):
    … “If we embrace a similar reform mentality. ”
    … “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.”
    Absent any measure of: COMMON SENSE – COURAGE – WILL POWER – INTEGRITY – FORESIGHT, from elected leaders, this initiative has no chance of being implemented. Instead, our elected leaders continue down the spiraling path of doom and selfishness. School Choice is the better path, allowing and empowering parents to decide where their Education Dollars go in the best interest of their kids.

  2. First thing that comes to mind is that Middle/Upper income families would be enabling their children by allowing them to have phones and phone usage could very well be a hindrance in their school learning activities. Another note to address, is whether all the school districts in Alaska could develop a phone policy that bans phone usage during school hours and even possibly lunch recess as well. Students would do well without the phones’ distraction from differing social media apps. Phones shouldn’t be allowed to turn the creative minds into mush from all of the social media crap that’s being pushed to our children, including us adults.
    Thank you Bob, for the insight …

  3. Bob Griffin is a PATRIOT and has done MUCH to try and arrest the race to the bottom for Education in Alaska. The insanity that the legislature keeps perpetrating is an embarrassment! They keep wrangling for more money and less accountability and the results speak for themselves. It is WAY PAST time for reform!!!

  4. Money is not the problem, the union control over the school system is. Now we have the same problem in Juneau since the republicans we elected joined the democrat party after getting elected. I don’t see anything good happening to better our schools, unfortunately.

  5. May I point out that many homeschool families, including ours, who are high scoring in their core subjects opt to not participate, again opt to NOT to participate, in many of the State and National standardized tests. I’m mentioning this because that would potentially indicate that this is contributing to Alaska’s low score as a whole. Or oppositely depending on which “stats” you are viewing and who has produced it.
    Why do so many of us opt out? Because we don’t need an NEA created or liberal outlet created test, or curriculum for that matter, to “prove” that our kids are on track or scoring above the rest of the nation. Most of us see samples of this daily and don’t have anything to prove to any entity outside of our home. Unless of course you are associated with a homeschool program which requires participation in standardized testing.
    Many of us do not want the strings attached when associating ourselves with federal “student” allotments or we don’t desire to have the government sniffing in how we choose to educate. Like using secular vs. non secular educational materials for example. This doesn’t mean that we are falling short, though many on the left side of the aisle like to claim this. I’m wanting to ensure that the broader picture of how homeschoolers fit into the equation of funding and testing and these stats are being portrayed vs reality of how it all works in relation to the graphs you may see presented in any particular article.

  6. Great job to them. Usually this author focuses on the Florida miracle – which showed a massive collapse in performance in 2024. Alaska is fortunate to have such a great correspondence program, but “generally agree” is not data as about 85% of parents in that setting opt out of assessments. What is good for one should be expected for the other.

    • In Florida’s case they’ve had a massive influx of new residents. That means schools are inundated with new students of varying levels of education and may not even speak the language. It’s called growing pains.

  7. Alaska use to be on the top but look where we are now and how we got there.
    The education board and unions have done this.

  8. What this article leaves out is the percentage of those students that are reading at grade level. You can be first in the nation and possibly only a few percentile points above the worst in nation. List how many of the kids are grade level and this article has far more meaning. Without that data it may very well just be propaganda for vouchers. The absence of that information leaves one to wonder.

  9. I’m a “no” to giving more money to the unions. I’d support more money if all of it went to parents in the form of vouchers.

  10. Bob has great points. Mississippi showed us public education operating in a red-state can be salvaged.
    .
    Problem is Alaska’s public-education system seems to be operating much differently, like it’s in a deep-blue state.
    .
    Is it salvageable or does it have to be replaced?
    .
    If education outcomes are any indication, Alaska’s education-industry officials have very different priorities from their Mississippi counterparts: getting money, spending money, hiring lobbyists, indoctrinating children, grooming children, perverting children, mutilating children, paying off teachers’ unions, harboring illegal aliens, pushing contracts to union friends, and, if time permits, pushing out children who get too old, too big for their desks and figuring out how to use Covid-19 as an excuse for everything.
    .
    These officials are like a mouth full of abscessed teeth. What gets better if every rotten one of them isn’t pulled out?
    .
    Do they get away with it here because the state’s grand-jury and election systems are broken, money supply’s limitless, and they spread enough of it around to keep contractors busy, teachers unions happy, and everyone understandably opposed to anything that might disrupt tthe money flow?
    .
    Seriously, the best that can be said about one small part of Alaska’s failed education system is it improved from F to D- ?
    .
    This is “salvageable”?
    .
    Maybe President Trump had the right idea… figure out what they do in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Mississippi to make powerhouse education systems.
    .
    Why not bring ’em here, say we’re starting over, you’re in charge, build us an education system like what you have, show us how to run it, and we’ll take it from there.
    .
    What the hell do we have to lose?

  11. Last time I checked, 89% of per student funding goes to staff salaries & benefits. It is annoying how every attempt to increase it is accompanied by rallying cries about it being “for the kids!” Ha! If the district cared about the kids, our schools’ rankings wouldn’t be so tragic.

  12. Realize how much of the schools spent of on class books that promoted multi sex as the norm. Now, with Trump that may not be used for education in public schools.. All that money to promote normalize of pick your gender.
    Books are not cheap…go woke go broke! Millions of hours of work by the population paid for wasted on such trash in the last what 10 years. From reading book, math, science, history…. They promoted the LGBT + in every opportunity!
    Perhaps cuts by firing the adults in the curriculum search committee, who searched, promoted, and selected woke items. This was paid for with taxpayer money. They “knew” better than natural logic!

  13. Great article, Bob Griffin! Unfortunately, the legislators that are in control will dismiss, discount, and even avoid the facts. Juneau doesn’t really run on rationale and common sense. It runs on power. How can the legislative majorities not face these facts? Until parents demand that their children have an effective teacher in every classroom, nothing will change.

    And that is the horrible part. This “education” system will continue to steal children’s futures.

  14. In Juneau, we have people like Rep. Himshoot who has declared: “…because in my mind we have an obligation simply to fund…”

    That’s right, she wants to hand over one billion dollars, per year, to the people who have given us the worst perfroming students in the country.

    Very recent info about how bad our education system performs:

    “The average score for fourth graders’ reading was 202, lower than the national average of 214 out of 500, putting Alaska below most of the nation at 51st of 52 U.S. jurisdictions, which include the 50 states as well the District of Columbia and Department of Defense operated schools. Students in Puerto Rico are assessed in some NAEP tests, but not included in the fourth grade reading comparison. New Mexico was the only jurisdiction with a lower score.”

  15. The Mississippi Miracle has nothing to do with school funding. It has everything to do with teachers being focused and committed to the students more than they are committed to their union. Implement performance standards for teachers that are directly tied to their pay and advancement and let’s see what happens. It works in private industry…

    • I hope you will dig deeper. About 25% of students in MS were retained by third grade – the highest rate by far in the US. So much of the credit for this is the fact that many of their students are a year older than other students that they are being compared to. Let’s let one team be allowed to have 19 year olds play basketball against their regular high school aged counterparts. Do they win because we are better coaches or that they are more physically mature and capable? Same thing.

  16. The only time quality is obtained in any transaction is within straight up, free market, competition. If taxpayers fund public education, the only way quality can be achieved is through vouchers. Public money allotment must follow the child to where the parent chooses. The problem will never be solved until this reality is accepted and followed.

  17. Even the NY Times opinion page has extolled Mississippi’s reforms: Nicholas Kristof – Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education (6/1/23) ‘https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/opinion/mississippi-education-poverty.html Read this please, Alaska legislators, from this article,

    Mississippi has achieved its gains despite ranking 46th in spending per pupil in grades K-12. Its low price tag is one reason Mississippi’s strategy might be replicable in other states. Another is that while education reforms around the country have often been ferociously contentious and involved battles with teachers’ unions, this education revolution in Mississippi unfolded with support from teachers and their union. “This is something I’m proud of,” said Erica Jones, a second-grade teacher who is the president of the Mississippi affiliate of the National Education Association, the teachers’ union. “We definitely have something to teach the rest of
    the country.”

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