Kymyona Burk, Ed.D., is a Senior Policy Fellow at ExcelinEd.
If you’re looking for a secret ingredient to explain Mississippi’s rise in reading achievement on the Fourth Grade Reading National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) over the last decade, you won’t find it. Some have even called that achievement “the Mississippi Miracle,” but you won’t find a miracle either.
Webster defines a miracle as an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing or accomplishment. As a Mississippi resident and former classroom teacher, I’ll concede that the notion of our state not ranking at the bottom in education achievement was indeed unusual. But the tireless, hard work that has gone into supporting educators, students and families is surely no miracle. And it didn’t happen overnight.
What did happen was the resurgence of a conversation about the right way to teach reading, which is grounded in science.
Over the last two decades, more than half of U.S. states have adopted early literacy policies that require reading instruction, interventions, curriculum and professional development for teachers of reading to align with what is known as the science of reading.
In 2002, Florida was the first state to adopt a third-grade reading law that ended social promotion. That legislation became a model for ExcelinEd’s fundamental principles, which should be included in a state’s policy to ensure that it is comprehensive. A comprehensive literacy policy addresses and supports the needs of those who are impacted the most – the students – and empowers those who are responsible for their success – educators and families.
The policy worked. Florida increased its NAEP fourth grade reading scale score by 13 points, going from 214 in 2002 to 227 in 2015. That’s equivalent to an improvement of one-and-a-half grade levels for Florida’s students.
Mississippi was paying attention. The state’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), modeled after Florida’s reading law, placed a heavy emphasis on prevention of reading difficulties through screening, early identification and interventions to address the needs of students at risk for reading failure. Following the hard work of implementing the LBPA, the policy started to change lives.
Florida now ranks third in the nation, and Mississippi has gone from 49th to 21st in fourth grade reading over the last decade. Neither state can say these gains happened overnight. Turning around statewide trends rarely do. But what Florida and Mississippi have in common is a long-term commitment to eradicating illiteracy and the willingness to strengthen their policies and implementation efforts to achieve it.
To that point, Florida recently took a bold step to eliminate harmful instructional practices in reading, known as three-cueing. And New York City, home to the nation’s largest school district, is now preparing to overhaul reading instruction by mandating the use of curriculum aligned to the science of reading. Led by New York City’s mayor and chancellor, this literacy effort has been described by some as “ambitious.” Yet there is rightfully a sense of urgency and responsibility to the students of New York City. The changes may be uncomfortable for some adults, but they are necessary to ensure that students become skilled readers and literate members of society.
Historically, many attempts at nationwide education reform have been one-hit-wonders, so why do I believe that a resurgence of the science of reading will be any different?
It may be the current awareness and exposure on a broad scale of faulty teaching methods. It may be the demand from families and other stakeholders to improve reading scores of students in their local schools and districts. It may be the dismal nationwide NAEP scores or Emily Hanford‘s investigative journalism. Or, perhaps most importantly, it’s the level of accountability placed on all of us who now know better, to do better.
