In 2024, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) astonished nearly everyone who follows American education. The state, long mired at the bottom of national rankings, had risen to 7th place in the percentage of fourth graders scoring “Basic” or higher in reading—a climb of over 40 slots since the early 2000s. This was not a marginal movement or statistical noise. It was a clear, sharp trajectory visible in the national data: Mississippi ranked 46th in 2017, 29th in 2019, 17th in 2022, and finally 7th in 2024 on this single metric (Florida Department of Education, 2024). The state has leapfrogged nearly every one of its peers, including those with far greater resources, reputations, and political clout.

This shift cannot be dismissed as a curiosity or regional oddity. It is a disruptive data point in the ongoing failure of the American educational establishment. The upward arc of Mississippi’s NAEP line defies decades of assumptions about which states are capable of leading in literacy, and forces an uncomfortable question: If Mississippi can do this, why hasn’t your state?

The answer cannot be cultural fatalism or socioeconomic hand-waving. Mississippi remains one of the poorest states in the nation. Yet it made strategic investments in evidence-based early literacy policy beginning in 2013, notably passing the Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), which established retention thresholds at the end of third grade, increased early screening, and deployed reading coaches to support teacher development statewide (Mississippi Department of Education, 2023). This law, and the ecosystem of policies surrounding it, took time to bear fruit. But when the 2019 NAEP scores arrived, Mississippi had posted some of the steepest gains in the country. Those gains continued through the pandemic and beyond.

Importantly, Mississippi’s progress was not driven by simple test prep or gaming. A 2024 econometric study published in Economics of Education Review used a difference-in-differences framework and found that the full policy bundle—including retention with supports—accounted for a meaningful gain of 0.14 standard deviations in Grade 4 reading for students exposed since kindergarten. That translates to approximately five NAEP scale points—large by the standards of population-level interventions (Whitehurst & colleagues, 2024). Another study, using regression discontinuity design, confirmed that students retained under the LBPA showed significant reading gains by sixth grade compared to those just above the cut score (Bailey et al., 2023). These were not cherry-picked case studies or mere anecdotes—they were rigorously modeled, population-based effects.

Still, it would be dangerous to overinterpret the role of retention alone. Gains in Mississippi began even before the high-stakes cutoff took full effect, suggesting that the broad improvements in early instruction, not merely the fear of being held back, were critical. In fact, coaching and instructional reform—not retention policy—received the highest marks from internal audits and external analysts alike (Chalkbeat, 2023). Mississippi committed to the systematic deployment of phonics-based instruction and rejected the trendy but unsupported “balanced literacy” framework. It trained teachers in structured literacy methods, funded coaching, and embedded assessment into instructional routines. These reforms were coherent, sustained, and executed with fidelity.

Compare that to most states. In California, New York, and Illinois—despite massive budgets and progressive rhetoric—Grade 4 NAEP reading scores have stagnated or declined over the same period. Few have committed to mandatory early screening or tied literacy funding to verifiable interventions. In some states, reading science legislation has passed but implementation has floundered due to internal resistance from teacher prep programs or union politics. In others, legacy curricula rooted in “three cueing” and other disproven techniques remain in classrooms, often with official blessing.

The tragedy is that we no longer lack tools. The science of reading is robust and the results of fidelity to that science—seen in Mississippi, and echoed to lesser degrees in states like Louisiana, Florida, and Tennessee—are now empirical fact. What remains is the will to act.

No governor, superintendent, or school board member—Democrat or Republican—can now pretend that we don’t know what it takes to move the needle. Nor can they claim that only rich or highly urbanized states have the capacity. Mississippi did not invent new literacy theory; it simply executed known solutions without flinching, and over a 10-year span, it rewrote its educational narrative.

The lesson is not that every state must copy Mississippi in every detail. Rather, the lesson is that policy coherence, timeline patience, and implementation fidelity are the true drivers of educational change—not ideology, slogans, or isolated pilot programs. States that wish to emulate Mississippi must resist the temptation to shortcut this process. Quick fixes and curriculum swaps alone will not suffice. What is needed is a complete ecosystem overhaul, from early screening to teacher training to accountability measures that hold districts to evidence-based standards.

Moreover, states must resist the urge to declare victory early. Mississippi’s eighth-grade NAEP scores, for example, have not yet caught up to its fourth-grade success—suggesting that without a vertical alignment of literacy supports across grades, early gains can fade. Policymakers must therefore make long-term investments in literacy pipelines, not just early firewalls.

Literacy is the foundation of equity, economic mobility, and civic participation. The cost of failure is not only academic—it is societal. Children who cannot read by fourth grade are more likely to struggle in every other subject, more likely to drop out, and more likely to fall prey to the cycle of poverty. In this light, Mississippi’s graph is not just a statistical story—it is a moral directive. If one of the poorest states in the union can become a leader in reading, no state has the right to hide behind excuses.

This is a moment of national reckoning. Red states and Blue states alike must act—not with slogans or ad hoc reform, but with the kind of commitment to literacy that Mississippi has now proven is possible. The age of incrementalism is over. The data are in. The standard has been raised.

Now meet it.

JOIN US IN “LITERATURE AS RESISTANCE” TUESDAY EVENINGS AT 7PM ET. REGISTRATION ENDS 10/15. ADULTS AND TEENS WELCOME, HOMESCHOOL DISOUNT AVAILABLE email info@ipak-edu.org

References

1. Florida Department of Education. (2024). NAEP Reading 2024 State Comparisons.

2. Mississippi Department of Education. (2023). Literacy-Based Promotion Act Annual Report.

3. Whitehurst, G.J., et al. (2024). Policy effects on reading achievement: Evidence from Mississippi, Economics of Education Review, 95, 102598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2024.102598

4. Bailey, D. et al. (2023). Retention and Literacy Outcomes in Mississippi: A Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Approach. NBER Working Paper.

5. Chalkbeat. (2023). Mississippi’s Reading Miracle: What Really Happened. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2023/7/18/23799124/mississippi-miracle-test-scores-naep-early-literacy-grade-retention-reading-phonics

6. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2024). NAEP Grade 4 Reading Snapshot Reports. https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard

7. Mississippi Today. (2024). Eighth-Grade Reading Gains Fall Short of ‘Miracle’. https://mississippitoday.org/2024/05/23/mississippi-falls-short-of-an-eighth-grade-literacy-miracle

8. ExcelinEd. (2025). State Policy Lessons from Early Literacy Leaders. https://excelined.org/2025/03/04/policy-lessons-from-states-that-improved-students-reading-and-math-proficiency

9. NCSL. (2025). Science of Reading Legislation Tracker. https://www.ncsl.org/resources/details/legislatures-lead-the-way-with-science-of-reading-approach

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