Much has been written about “the Mississippi Miracle,” the dramatic increase in fourth grade reading scores. New York Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristoff brought national attention to the phenomenon and remarked that these amazing results were due to the “science of reading” (phonics), not any new funding for the state’s woefully underfunded schools, nor any reduction in poverty or segregation..
At the time, I criticized Kristoff’s naïveté, because he failed to notice that the state’s fourth grade NAEP scores rose, but its eighth grade scores had not. What kind of miracle fades away over time? Of what value is evanescent progress? Kristoff attributed the stunning improvement in fourth grade scores to the “science of reading,” and minimized the significance of the state’s policy of holding back third graders who didn’t pass the reading test. Winnowing out the weakest readers lifts the average scores of those who are promoted to fourth grade. A manufactured miracle.
Julia James, a reporter for Mississippi Today, wrote recently about the disparity between the fourth grade scores, which rose impressively, and the eighth grade scores, which didn’t. The headline says that the state “fell short” of an eighth-grade reading “miracle.” In fact, Mississippi’s eighth-grade reading scores were completely unchanged over the period from 2011-2021; actually, the scores were slightly lower in 2021.
The balance of the article concerns ways to raise eighth grade reading scores.
But there is no thought given to whether there really was a “miracle” in fourth grade or just old-fashioned gaming of the system.
Incidentally, the Mississippi State Superintendent who oversaw the fourth grade reading “miracle” is now the state superintendent in Maryland, where she hopes to produce the same results. Let’s hope that those gains are sustained into eighth grade.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
At the top of the list for raising test scores are family income and level of education.
Good morning Diane,
First paragraph, final clause, “…it any reduction in segregation or poverty.” I suspect the “it” in this clause should be “not,’ like the beginning of the clause that precedes it.
Thanks, fixed it.
The middle school slump is a national issue, and it is associated with poverty. It is easier to pump up scores for all students on a test in which students are still learning to read. When reading shifts to reading to learn in middle school, the cognitive and linguistic demands on the reader are higher. Poor students with limited vocabularies and limited access to enriching experiences will not score as well on a standardized test. Lower scores do not imply they are incapable. It means they are at a disadvantage in this type of assessment. Comprehension tasks are much more demanding of students since they require more prior knowledge and application than mere phonics.
One thing I learned in my 14 years in middle school is that’s when a kiddo’s window on the world opens wide enough that they can see other kids’ lives may be quite different from their own. It can be a harsh reality for the most vulnerable or poor of them. Test scores aren’t the biggest item on their radar.
It’s important to see progress on reading scores every year. So, this year, only Amy’s and Tuan’s scores are going to be regarded as official. We’ll do an average of their scores. The rest of you will be retained until scores improve. This means, of course, that most of our fourth-grade teachers will become third-grade teachers. Have a nice day.
Oh, and congrats to our third-grade teachers for their surging enrollment! This shows what a fantastic job they’ve been doing. That’s one popular grade we have there!!!
–F. A. Kit., Principal, Everything’s Roses Elementary
P.S. Who knows, with miraculous score improvement like what we are going to have this year, perhaps I’ll be made State Commissioner!
Perhaps these tests are just crap. Maybe the results are way more random than anyone is willing to admit.
The results of standardized testing are fairly predictable as they generally correlate to family socioeconomics with a few outliers here and there. What is unfair is declaring the results as grounds to to plunder and/or close the schools of disadvantaged students. A more logical approach would be to invest more resources in these lower scoring schools instead of punishing students for being poor and contributing more chaos to their already chaotic lives.
I’m not sure what a miracle in reading is actually defined to be, but Mississippi certainly made notable progress in reading in Grade 4 NAEP compared to other states between 2013, the year its first reform bill passed, to the latest 2022 results (there was no 2021 Main NAEP in Reading, BTW. I think you have a typo in your blog).
But, what all are missing is what the Grade 8 NAEP results look like when you do separate analyses for different racial groups. Looking at Grade 8 NAEP Reading for 2013 compared to 2022 shows Mississippi actually made notable progress compared to other states for both white and Black students.
Here’s another surprise: One year after Mississippi passed its first reform bill in 2013, South Carolina passed a similar measure. And, while not as notable as the Mississippi results, South Carolina’s white and Black students also moved up in NAEP performance compared to other states between 2013 and 2022.
Why isn’t anyone paying attention to what NAEP shows when you do state-to-state comparisons more fairly?
I have some interesting tables generated with the NAEP Data Explorer web tool if anyone wants to see what actually happened.
The comparison in the article was 2011-2021. Take it up with the author of the article.
Look at the two graphs more closely. They are only labeled for every other year, but the last set of data plots out for 2022, not 2021. There was no Main NAEP in 2021. COVID interfered and it was put off until 2022.
Still no miracle scores for 8th graders. Legislators deliberately underfund the schools. Half the students in the public schools are black. The legislature is ruby red. They don’t give a damn, never have. Everyone would like to fund a magic bullet that would create high scores without spending anything on the schools or on widespread poverty.
What should we do about the fact that MS’ Grade 8 NAEP reading score ranking for white students jumped from 49th to 22nd between 2013 and 2022 and their Black students went from 41st (out of 42 states with scores) in 2013 to 22nd (out of 41 states with scores) in 2022? Do you want to just ignore this?
From NAEP:
Score Gaps for Student Groups
▪ In 2019, Black students had an average score that was 24 points lower than that
for White students. This performance gap was not significantly different from
that in 1998 (25 points).
▪ In 2019, Hispanic students had an average score that was 10 points lower than
that for White students. Data are not reported for Hispanic students in 1998,
because reporting standards were not met.
▪ In 2019, female students in Mississippi had an average score that was higher
than that for male students by 10 points.
▪ In 2019, students who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program
(NSLP), had an average score that was 25 points lower than that for students
who were not eligible. This performance gap was not significantly different from
that in 1998 (23 points).
NAEP 2022: 8th grade reading scores
.
SCORE GAPS FOR STUDENT GROUPS
• In 2022, Black students had an average score that was 27 points lower than that for White students. This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998
(25 points).
• In 2022, Hispanic students had an average score that was 20 points lower than that for White students. Data are not reported for Hispanic students in 1998, because reporting standards were not met.
• In 2022, male students in Mississippi had an average score that was lower than that for female students by 8 points.
• In 2022, students who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) had an average score that was 24 points lower than that for students who were not eligible. This performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998 (23 points).
NOTE: The NAEP reading scale ranges from 0 to 500. Results presented in this report are based on public school students only. Statistical comparisons are calculated on the basis of unrounded scale scores or percentages. Score gap results for “White,” “Black,” and “Hispanic” presented in this report are based on the 6-category race/ethnicity variable with data available starting in early 1990s. Read more about how to interpret NAEP results from the reading assessment at
interpret results.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress
Mississippi 8th grade reading scores compared to other states:
In 2022, the average score in Mississippi (253) was
lower than those in 37 states/jurisdictions;
higher than those in 1 states/jurisdictions;
not significantly different from those in 13 states/jurisdictions
The gaps remain, hence no miracle, as I previously mentioned. But, from 2013 to 2022 MS Black students went from scoring a statistically significant 11 points lower than the national average for Black students to just scoring 3 points lower. In fact, MS’ Black students scored just 2 points lower in 2022 per the NAEP Data Explorer’s statistical significance test function. And, that 2022 difference between MS’ and the national Black student scores was not statistically significantly different. So that’s really a tie. Also, this is for 8th grade, where improvements in early grade reading instruction have not had much time to percolate up. The 2024 NAEP results will be interesting to watch when they come out.
“The balance of the article concerns ways to raise eighth grade reading scores.”
Sad, very sad indeed!
More bastardization of the teaching and learning process.
When will we learn? Never I suppose.
When the foundational cornerstone of the State Marker (degree) is score based, score reverence maintains the foundation. Myths endure because their stories resolve contradictions that logic, reason, and facts cannot. The score myth feeds the notoriety of the marker. Who wants to learn they are captured by the bamboozle?
I taught in public schools (1975 – 2005). Starting after 1983, as President Reagan continued Nixon’s war on recreational drugs launching US prison populations from a quarter million average to more than two million feeding the largest prison population in the world ever since, Reagan launched another war to destroy public education with his cherry-picked, lying, misinformation report called A Nation at Risk.
A Nation at Risk has been a plague on the United States ever since.
After A Nation at Risk, there was an assembly line of impressively named magic teaching bullets that arrived without much thought, promoted by one idiot/fraud after another. That includes rich people like Bill Gates and the WalMart Walton family.
For about 40 years since Reagan launched his war on public education, every magic bullet that claimed it would revolutionize K-12 public education FAILED, leaving a mess behind that needed cleaning up.
Guess who had to clean that mess up? TEACHERS. (not the frauds that pushed their miracles that never worked)
The BS called Science of Reading is no different than all the rest of the crap that flooded the Untied States and a few other countries after A Nation at Risk came out in 1983.
For the few that have prospered the most, like David Coleman and Eva Moskowitz, what happened after A Nation at Risk turned into a gold rush, for them.
For teachers, it has been torture. For many of our children, it continues to be a catastrophe.
In Mississippi it isn’t the Science of Reading that will turn around reading scores followed by improvement instead of more failure. Instead, the focus must be overcoming the damage caused by child poverty.
“As of 2022, Mississippi’s child poverty rate was 17%, which is higher than the national average of 16%. This means that more than 500,000 Mississippi residents are considered to be below the poverty line. When looking at child poverty by race, 49% of Black/African American children in Mississippi live in poverty, compared to 16% of White, non-Hispanic children. Child poverty is also more concentrated in rural areas of Mississippi, particularly in single-parent families.”
The real solution will not feed more wealth into a few bank accounts.
This is probably the best education method to overcome child poverty:
“Fighting the War on Poverty with Early Childhood Education Congress Should Strengthen Funding for These Programs in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
“Jennifer Rokosa recommends that Congress boost funding for federal programs with a track record of bringing kids out of poverty and helping them become successful.”
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fighting-the-war-on-poverty-with-early-childhood-education/
I am currently reading a memoir called Child of Dark by Carolina Maria de Jesus. Child of Dark was originally published in Brazil in Portuguese in the 1950s, and it has been a bestseller in Brazil ever since. I’m reading an English translation of the original.
Everyone who really wants to know what poverty does to children should read Child of Dark, a first hand account of living in extreme poverty by a woman with a second grade education, who was born into that poverty and grew up in it. Then she started having children of her own while still living in poverty.
Once done reading Child of Dark, it will be obvious why BS like the Science or Reading (and all the other failed magic bullets and future magic bullets that will also fail) cannot overcome the damage caused by poverty.
Kristof believes himself to be an expert on education. He’s not. He gets paid to write his opinions in the NYT. Lucrative gig, unlike teaching.
It is perplexing to me that so many brilliant journalists think we can solve our reading problems if we just teach phonics. Don’t they notice that where phonics is taught ad nauseum, we still have a wide range in reading levels? Don’t they notice that rich, advantaged children often score above grade level, while poor kids are usually the students who score “below grade level?”
Reading and writing are both highly complex mental processes, akin to thinking. Yes, there are dramatic differences in levels of achievement but unfortunately there are no simplistic solutions.