A Mississippi Error

It was bound to happen.

With all of the cuts Elon Musk and his DOGE folks made in areas like public education, they were bound to eliminate funding for a project that was actually working and working extremely well.

The 74 reported the following this week in two separate articles:

“When Mississippi lawmakers in 2013 approved legislation to improve students’ basic reading skills, it fell to State Superintendent Carey Wright to make it happen.”

“She ensured that all K-3 teachers were trained in the ‘Science of Reading’ and hired literacy coaches at schools that had the highest percentage of low-achievers.”

“To guide the effort, Wright turned to the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, based at Florida State University, one of 10 federally funded labs nationwide. Little-known even among many educators, the labs, created by Congress in 1965, work with states and school districts to implement research-based practices.”

“By 2019, Wright and her colleagues had pulled off what is now known as the ‘Mississippi Miracle,’ with students in this deep red state making greater literacy gains than in any other. Fourth-graders in Mississippi rose from 49^th in the nation to 29^th – adjusting for demographics, it now ranks near the top of the U.S. in both fourth-grade reading and math, behind just Florida and Texas, according to the Urban Institute.”

“’They were huge partners with us,’ Wright said of the lab in an interview this week. ‘It’s just this amazing group of researchers and content-area specialists.’”

“But that distinction wasn’t enough to save the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast – or the nine other RELs, as they’re called. On Thursday, the U.S. Education Department announced that it had terminated $336 million in contracts with the labs, saying auditors had uncovered ‘wasteful and ideologically driven spending not in the interest of students and taxpayers.’”

“The move has left researchers and literacy advocates shaking their heads. A director at a top research firm with many federal contracts, who asked not to be identified to avoid retaliation, said she got the sense from the sudden, broad cuts that ‘no one went in and took a really careful look at where the RELs were being helpful.’”

“While some lab projects likely haven’t led to improvements in practices or student outcomes, she’s doubtful that department officials even pored over such data. ‘Someone decided that this whole program needed to go.’”

“An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since the centers are mandated by Congress, the department has said it will offer contracts to new bidders, but several observers said they were skeptical of this claim.”

…

According to The 74’s Chad Aldeman, this is what the budget cutters missed when it came to Mississippi:

“Achievement gaps in eighth grade math are growing in every state across the country. But in reading, they’re actually a bit worse. In fact, 10 states – Arkansas, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Florida, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland – have seen the gap between their best and their worst readers widen by more than 20 points since 2013.”

“There are two ways for a gap to grow. The top can pull away, or the bottom can fall out. Here in the United States, the key problem is that the bottom is falling, and the changes are not small. At the national level, in fourth grade reading, the scores of the top 10% of students fell 0.5 points from 2013-24. Meanwhile, the scores of the bottom 10% fell 15 points.”

“The state-level results are even more jarring. To put those in perspective, consider that the average student gains about 8 points per year on the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading tests. [For the bottom 10% of students in each state,] 40 states saw a decline of 10 points or more, 16 saw declines of 20 points or more and two states – Delaware and Maryland – had declines of more than 30 points.”

“But one state is bucking this trend: Mississippi. Indeed, there’s been a fair amount of coverage of Mississippi’s reading progress in recent years, but its gains are so impressive that they merit another look.”

“First, it’s worth remembering that Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. Its per-capita income is below $50,000, and it spends less on its public schools than all but three states. But when the Urban Institute adjusted NAEP scores based on each state’s demographics, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading scores came out on top.”

“Even without those adjustments, though, Mississippi looks pretty great. Its Black students rank third nationally, and its low-income kids outperform those in every other state. Mississippi is also the only state to see gains across all performance levels over the last decade. Its average went up, but so did the scores of its highest and lowest performers. Mississippi raised the bar and the floor at the same time.”

…

And a big partner helping Mississippi make this breakthrough was the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, one of the labs closed this week because of the Trump administration budget cuts.

It’s unclear whether state departments of education and local school districts can replace these regional labs with their own research-based supports and practices. But one thing is clear – at least in Mississippi – the partner that helped that state fix their math and reading challenges, and set the state on the course to excellence, is now damaged in the short-term, if not gone over the long-term.

Til tomorrow. SVB