In a recent interview with the Daily Caller, Governor Tate Reeves (R) said, "The Mississippi Miracle is real."
"Governor Reeves is right to brag on Mississippi's education progress because it really has been stunning over the last decade," Grant Callen, founder and CEO of Empower Mississippi, tells AFN. "One example of that is our literacy scores; we were 49th in the nation in fourth grade reading in 2013, and we are number nine in the nation now. We jumped 40 spots."
He says "a transformative package" of reforms contributed to those dramatic gains.
The Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013, for example, "changed the way we taught reading," Callen notes. "It provided for literacy coaches, and it provided what was kind of a controversial piece at the time, a third grade reading gate."
It recognized that the state was not doing kids any favors by moving them to the fourth grade if they did not know how to read; it reintroduced phonics and ensured that kids were literate before they moved on from the third grade.
The percentage of students who both failed the test and were held back from advancing to the third grade decreased from 9% in 2019 to 6.5% in 2023. High school graduation rates also rose in that time from 72% to 89.9%.
Callen says he is proud of the lawmakers who stood against the coalition of the status quote that incessantly fought to keep these reforms from happening.
And while he believes other states can and should use Mississippi as a model, he points out that The Magnolia State still lacks one thing: school choice.
"It is time for Mississippi to build on these literacy gains and enact real options for families," Callen contends. "We're currently surrounded by states that have already passed universal education, but we haven't done that in Mississippi. It's time."
The updated National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card from 2024 shows Mississippi leading the nation in demographic-adjusted fourth- and eighth-grade scores. It has gone viral on social media, with Vice President JD Vance even sharing it and calling Mississippi's progress "incredible."
"Smart education reform drastically improved Mississippi's schools," he posted on X.
"It's really not a miracle at all," Gov. Reeves asserted. "It's really a result of conservative reforms implemented in public education. They're making a huge difference for kids."
Callen says he is "really proud of that."
