Mississippi, Florida, Texas and Louisiana do better on math and reading in 4th and 8th grade tests than MD and VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how much of this could have to do with quickly getting kids back into school in person during Covid?

In my county in Florida kids were only home for about 4 weeks during Covid. Then almost everyone returned to school. This was common throughout the south.

Arkansas, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming were all adamant about returning to in-person school full time by fall of 2020. Mississippi was like a number of other states that allowed in‑person schooling fall of 2020 but didn’t require it. Districts were allowed to go hybrid or fully virtual.

None of those states saw the same rise in educational outcomes that Mississippi did. COVID policies couldn’t have been the deciding factor. Mississippi wasn’t even among the first states to fully reopen.

It’s the policy and curriculum changes that led to the Mississippi Miracle.

How is it a miracle that the latest NAEP scores put Mississippi in 41st place out of 50. Specifically the scores are
# 41 in NAEP Reading Scores
#48 in Best States Overall
#34 in Education
#34 in Pre-K-12

It’s good news that Mississippi is doing better but they should be talking about what will it take to put Mississippi in the top ten best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how much of this could have to do with quickly getting kids back into school in person during Covid?

In my county in Florida kids were only home for about 4 weeks during Covid. Then almost everyone returned to school. This was common throughout the south.

Arkansas, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming were all adamant about returning to in-person school full time by fall of 2020. Mississippi was like a number of other states that allowed in‑person schooling fall of 2020 but didn’t require it. Districts were allowed to go hybrid or fully virtual.

None of those states saw the same rise in educational outcomes that Mississippi did. COVID policies couldn’t have been the deciding factor. Mississippi wasn’t even among the first states to fully reopen.

It’s the policy and curriculum changes that led to the Mississippi Miracle.

How is it a miracle that the latest NAEP scores put Mississippi in 41st place out of 50. Specifically the scores are
# 41 in NAEP Reading Scores
#48 in Best States Overall
#34 in Education
#34 in Pre-K-12

It’s good news that Mississippi is doing better but they should be talking about what will it take to put Mississippi in the top ten best.

Not being the poorest state in the US with the lowest life expectancy as well as third highest for food insecurity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's probably because those states are all so racist that anyone who can afford it, sends their kids to private schools. Schools are still segregated in the South, people just have to pay for the privledge.

The private schools in MS are indeed racist and they are also worse than the public schools in many cases. The teachers don't even have to be teachers in some of them. I escaped from MS - AMA. Gotta say though...they've done a great job with this. It's kind of shocking.

Also because there are more religious extremists than educators in the state the religious schools are largely unregulated. They do not require their teachers to be certified. And most concerning is that they don’t test the kids in these religious unregulated schools. If they tested them their test scores would only drop even further down.

And these segregated religious “schools” will be receiving vouchers under the Trump Big Loser Bill he’s been touting. Those kids don’t stand a chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I keep seeing instagram videos where they ask high schoolers to read a sentence and they can't. It's not a hard sentence, but they completely couldn't read words like silhouette.

When you have rock bottom expectations for students and nonstop chromebook usage, this is what you get.

To be fair “silhouette” is a very advanced word to sound out. You need to know French spelling patterns (the dipthong ou plus the ette spelling for /et/) and they aren’t explicitly taught, as far as I know. It is also an uncommon word in general. That means the sentence you heard kids try to read was not, in fact, simple, but quite hard.

Quoting myself to say that kids SHOULD be taught to sound these words out, and deserve to learn how to read hard words! I just don’t blame individual teens for not yet being able to.

Phonics and sounding it out wouldn’t help anyone trying to pronounce a French word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how much of this could have to do with quickly getting kids back into school in person during Covid?

In my county in Florida kids were only home for about 4 weeks during Covid. Then almost everyone returned to school. This was common throughout the south.

Arkansas, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming were all adamant about returning to in-person school full time by fall of 2020. Mississippi was like a number of other states that allowed in‑person schooling fall of 2020 but didn’t require it. Districts were allowed to go hybrid or fully virtual.

None of those states saw the same rise in educational outcomes that Mississippi did. COVID policies couldn’t have been the deciding factor. Mississippi wasn’t even among the first states to fully reopen.

It’s the policy and curriculum changes that led to the Mississippi Miracle.

How is it a miracle that the latest NAEP scores put Mississippi in 41st place out of 50. Specifically the scores are
# 41 in NAEP Reading Scores
#48 in Best States Overall
#34 in Education
#34 in Pre-K-12

It’s good news that Mississippi is doing better but they should be talking about what will it take to put Mississippi in the top ten best.

Not being the poorest state in the US with the lowest life expectancy as well as third highest for food insecurity

What you should be asking is why Maryland has the 3rd highest median income in the nation but is #21 on reading. Not why the poorest state in the nation isn't in the top 10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how much of this could have to do with quickly getting kids back into school in person during Covid?

In my county in Florida kids were only home for about 4 weeks during Covid. Then almost everyone returned to school. This was common throughout the south.

Arkansas, Florida, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming were all adamant about returning to in-person school full time by fall of 2020. Mississippi was like a number of other states that allowed in‑person schooling fall of 2020 but didn’t require it. Districts were allowed to go hybrid or fully virtual.

None of those states saw the same rise in educational outcomes that Mississippi did. COVID policies couldn’t have been the deciding factor. Mississippi wasn’t even among the first states to fully reopen.

It’s the policy and curriculum changes that led to the Mississippi Miracle.

How is it a miracle that the latest NAEP scores put Mississippi in 41st place out of 50. Specifically the scores are
# 41 in NAEP Reading Scores
#48 in Best States Overall
#34 in Education
#34 in Pre-K-12

It’s good news that Mississippi is doing better but they should be talking about what will it take to put Mississippi in the top ten best.

#41 is for 8th grade reading in 2024. That same year they were #9 for 4th grade reading.

Yes, it’s concerning that their reading gains atrophy from 4th to 8th grade. However, let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. They are still doing awesome in elementary school, and they did it without substantially impacting the state budget. Next step is to try to solve middle school.