A new report from the center-left Progressive Policy Institute documents how Mississippi climbed from last in the country in fourth-grade reading to above the national average. The report’s insights offer useful guidance for New York State.
The report identified four reasons for Mississippi’s success. Its widely touted “science of reading” initiative, which implemented evidence-based reading programs, was one. The other three were rigorous standards and accountability, real consequences for poor performance, and careful state-level implementation.
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More than 40 states have adopted policies aimed at evidence-based reading instruction. Most have not adopted the other three policies. But clearly the full package is needed for success.
What does Mississippi’s approach look like in practice? Starting in 2012, the state began grading every school based on measurable student outcomes. Schools earned points only for students performing at or above grade level. High schools received the most credit for students graduating with a standard diploma in four years. Students who earned a GED, occupational diploma, or certificate of attendance garnered the school fewer points. Students who dropped out cost points.
Schools that earned strong grades were given more leeway by the state. By contrast, districts rated F for two consecutive years could face state takeover ; local superintendents could be removed, and school board members could lose their seats.
Accountability and consequences played a major role in Mississippi’s reading reforms, too. Under the state’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, everyone in Mississippi’s system is accountable for teaching children to read: teachers, principals, district administrators, and state officials.
The law requires that students who cannot demonstrate reading proficiency by the end of third grade be held back, with few exemptions and no parental opt-out. Beginning in kindergarten, schools must screen students for reading difficulties three times a year. Each time a child screens below the benchmark, the school sends a state-drafted letter to parents describing what is wrong and what the school would do about it.
Compare all of this with New York. The New York State Education Department (NYSED) describes its accountability mission as providing “scaffolded support,” ensuring that schools have “ownership and agency” as they plan for improvement. The NYSED makes no mention of “consequences” for failure.
New York does have a receivership law, passed in 2015, that allows the state to intervene in its lowest-performing schools. But a school must spend at least three consecutive years among the bottom 5 percent before the state can act. Even then, the intervention is managed by the local superintendent, not Albany.
And the law is rarely used. Of the 144 schools New York identified as struggling in 2015, three were ultimately placed under an independent receiver in 2018. Just 15 schools across the state were in receivership for the 2025–2026 school year.
One explanation for this difference in systems is that Mississippi is not so dominated by public-sector unions. Changes to evaluation systems, instructional requirements, and professional responsibilities in New York are subject to collective bargaining with the state’s teachers’ union, among the most powerful in the country. Mississippi, by contrast, operates without a traditional collective bargaining system for teachers.
The results reflect these differences. According to the 2015 NAEP, the average score for fourth-graders in New York State was 223; almost a decade later, it declined to 215. Over the same period, Mississippi’s average score rose from 214 to 219. Yet in 2023, New York per-pupil spending was $30,012, while Mississippi per-pupil spending was only $12,093.
New York is not Mississippi. Its politics are more complex, its unions more powerful, and its districts more autonomous. But a state that has spent more per pupil than any other for 19 consecutive years should be able to hold someone accountable for whether its children learn to read.