San Francisco brings back Algebra
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Anonymous
Let’s not exaggerate Mississippi changes as being a miracle. They are still in the bottom five with their Southern neighbors in ranking for the Best State Overall. This includes education, health care, the economy of the state, infrastructure, public safety, and a non corrupt state government. The bottom ranked states desperately need quality healthcare and better access to quality food in order to excel in education. |
Anonymous
The ranking you cited is a fiction. |
Anonymous
I think it is worth recognizing that Mississippi’s results stand out even if you don't want to call it a "miracle." Many states have been trying for years to raise performance among low income students, often with very limited progress to show for it. No state has seen gains that were this large, this fast, and this steady across different groups of students. Maybe it doesn't constitute a "miracle" to you, but it does make it something worth studying instead of brushing aside. Let's compare Mississippi's results to Universal Pre-k, an often suggested reform. Universal Pre-k programs usually produce small early test score bumps that fade by third grade, and they require major ongoing spending to operate. Mississippi’s approach, by contrast, did not involve a massive new budget line. The state invested in teacher training, coaching, and new curricula, but it did not build a whole new statewide system of classrooms and staff. Yet it still produced a nine point jump in fourth grade reading on the NAEP from 2013-2022, the largest improvement in the country over that period. That is a very different cost profile from Universal Pre-k, and the results were far larger. So if someone likes Universal Pre-k because it aims to help disadvantaged students, they should love what Mississippi did even more. It delivered larger gains, reached students at the exact moment literacy matters most, and did so without the massive price tag that Universal Pre-k carries. |
Anonymous
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The people who pushed for these changes are the ones saying it’s not a miracle and didn’t happen quickly.
There’s certainly some takeaways but no need to indulge in clickbait language. One of the key changes for Mississippi was increasing access to pre-k: https://www.mississippifirst.org/early-education/ |
Anonymous
controlling for race and income, Mississippi's education system is excellent. |
Anonymous
| NAEP results clearly show the Mississippi miracle is real. |
Anonymous
The Early Learning Collaborative Act improved readiness for the children who participated, but let's not overstate its impact. It reached too few children, began too late to influence the early NAEP gains, and produced mixed academic results when evaluated. You can read the state's report on the outcomes here: https://www.peer.ms.gov/sites/default/files/peer_publications/rpt695_highlights.pdf Here's the key finding: "From the data captured, PEER determined that collaborative students performed statistically better than the comparison group on kindergarten readiness tests, worse on third and fifth grade math achievement tests, and similar to the comparison group on all other achievement tests. Notably, collaborative students outperformed the comparison group in all behavioral outcomes measured (i.e., disciplinary incidents, suspensions, and chronic absences)." The state's pre-k program suffered the same problems as most other pre-k programs that have been studied. The kids received a modest bump in kindergarten that essentially got washed away by third grade. There were behavioral benefits, but they didn't translate into better academic performance. |
Anonymous
The people who pushed for these changes are the ones saying it’s not a miracle and didn’t happen quickly. |
Anonymous
You are confusing two different things. |