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Tennessee, which once counted on Mississippi’s worst-in-the-nation reading scores to elevate its own national ranking for literacy, is now looking to its neighbor to the south as a role model for how to improve.
In a turnaround dubbed the “Mississippi miracle,” the state saw its fourth grade reading scores on a national test rise dramatically between 2013 and 2019, even for historically marginalized groups like Black and Hispanic students. Mississippi also maintained its reading gains in 2022, while scores in most other states declined after the pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions to schooling.
Now, under several 2021 laws, Tennessee is employing many of the same tactics that Mississippi did under its 2013 law. Among them: prioritizing reading improvements and investments in grades K-3, training teachers on the “science of reading,” including an emphasis on phonics and — most controversial of all — requiring third graders to pass a state reading test to get promoted to the fourth grade.
Carey Wright, Mississippi’s education chief from 2013 to 2022, praised Tennessee during testimony Wednesday before state lawmakers in Nashville who are considering whether to make changes to Tennessee’s policies for holding third graders back.