We’ve now had 12 years of terrible education statistics. You would have thought this would spark a flurry of reform activity. And it has, but in only one type of people: Republicans. When it comes to education policy, Republicans are now kicking Democrats in the but.
Schools in blue states like California, Oregon and Washington are languishing, but schools in red states like Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana, traditional laggards, are suddenly doing remarkably well. Roughly 52% of Mississippi’s Black fourth graders read at grade level, compared with only 28% in California. Louisiana is the only state where fourth-grade achievement levels have returned to prepandemic levels. An Urban Institute study adjusted for the demographics of the student bodies found that schools in Mississippi are educating their fourth graders more successfully in math and reading than schools in any other state. Other rising stars include Florida, Texas and Georgia.
Writing in Education Next, the scholars Michael Hartney and Paul E. Peterson report on an interesting turnaround. In 2019 deep blue states tended to have higher average reading scores for fourth graders than deep red states after adjusting for demographics. By 2024 that had flipped: “Red states rank highest, blue states lowest.”
The so-called Southern Surge…provide clear accountability information to parents and give them more freedom to choose schools. They send coaches to low-performing classrooms. They use high-quality tutoring, and they don’t promote students who can’t read, reducing the bureaucratic strings that used to control behavior in the classroom. They also hold schools and parents accountable. In Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, a child who isn’t reading at the end of third grade has to repeat it.
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