Mississippi’s Department of Education was quick to trumpet signs of an improvement in education standards. According to a gushing press release they put out, Mississippi has risen up the national education rankings from 48th to 30th over the past decade
“Great!” you might think. “It’s wonderful to see an improvement in education standards in Mississippi”. But has there really been an improvement?
The Department of Education pronouncement was based on a recently released report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which itself used data from the US Department of Education’s National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).
I took a closer look at the NAEP data behind what was being claimed, and it is clear that any improvements in Mississippi’s education ranking owe more to a decline in standards in other states, rather than to any substantive improvements in our own.
Between 2015 and 2022, Mississippi went from
46th for fourth grade reading to 18th. Progress, yes, but the average fourth grade
NAEP score in reading only rose from 214 to 217.
In other words, the improvement in ranking
in fourth grade reading scores since 2015 is almost entirely a reflection of
the fact that standards fell in other states.
The data also shows that while there has been
an improvement in the percentage of fourth graders who are proficient in
reading in Mississippi, the improvement happened before 2019. It almost certainly reflects the enactment of
a package of literacy laws in 2013, which shifted the way Mississippians teach
reading towards phonics, rather than any change in policies since.
There has not been progress in the past five
years, and any change in our ranking reflects the fact that other states have
just done worse than we have.
In 2022, Mississippi ranked 44th in eight grade NAEP math, compared to 46th in 2015. Not only was there little relative improvement, the state’s average NAEP eighth grade math score actually fell from 271 in 2015 to 266 in 2022.
It is profoundly misleading to present evidence
of Mississippi’s relative improvement as evidence of any kind of absolute rise
in standards.
Here are some facts that the Department of
Education could have included in their press release, but didn’t:
- 82 percent of 8th grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient math in 2022.
- 69 percent of 4th grade kids in Mississippi were not proficient in reading in 2022.
- Almost
4 in 10 fourth graders in 2022 did not even reach the basic reading
standard.
Instead of propaganda, the Department of Education could take
a look at its own data which shows that almost one in four Mississippi students
— 108,000 children — are chronically absent from school.
The rate of chronic absenteeism has in fact
skyrocketed from 70,275 in 2016-17 to 108,310 in 2022-23.
“So what?” you might say. “Of course,
officials are going to present what they do in the most positive light”.
It
matters deeply because until we have an honest conversation about the true
state of education in our state, we aren’t going to see the changes Mississippi
desperately needs.
Mississippi
is now surrounded on three sides by states that have embraced universal school
choice. In Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana, the money will follow the
child. Families in those states will get control over their child’s share
of state education funds.
Change only
came about because there was a recognition of reality, and realization that
reform was urgent and essential.
The reason there has been so little progress
towards school choice in our state is because too many policy makers believe
our education system is doing better than it actually is.
Douglas
Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public
Policy. Mr. Carswell authored and sponsored this post.
19 comments:
Bring back the position of "truant officer." Most on here have probably never heard that term. How many of those 108,000 reside with auntie or memaw, and don't have a father figure in their life?
How many of those 108,000 are out committing crimes?
And yet a lot of those kids will get into college, get a degree in something like Psychology or some other useless major and then end up in debt working in a job that doesn't require a degree. The dumbing down of our educational system to let people in that don't deserve to be there is killing America.
*bring back Truancy Officers that actually do the job.
Forgive me if I have very little faith in any MS Govt employee being effective and not simply ignoring the problems all together or taking bribes to look the other way.
We all have to understand that people would lose their jobs if the real numbers would come out. Let's all stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is A-ok. You want to see improvement? Start firing school administrators. You will see a real shift in education standards in this state.
Every district has a school attendance officer. The position is ineffective in many cases due to the attendance officer not doing their jobs or elected judges not doing theirs. Their are a few good school attendance officers and they should be commended for doing a thankless job.
Is there someway to break this figures down by school district? Asking for many friends.
You hear all of the time children wanting to be doctors, lawyers,school teachers, scientists, bankers, etc. when was the last time you heard any one wanting to be “school attendance officers?”
The problem with public education is the parents. And the government created this problem with food stamps and public assistance by rewarding single motherhood.
Not disputing the data points made, but I think it is also important to know how the NAEP is given in Mississippi. The test is only given to a small sample of students from each school in a few grades. The school is sent a short list of students randomly selected and assigned to test ONE part of the NAEP.The school does not choose who takes the test or which part they take. For example 20 students selected and assigned - 10 to the math and 10 to the ELA. This is why you do not see breakdowns by schools. It is just a state-wide snapshot.
I agree fully with the notion that student performance has not increased and they have simply lowered the standards to be successful
BUT......
I went to the NCES website and checked this out myself. He is making it sound like "proficient" is "average" when its NOT.
"proficient is basically a "B" if you conceptualize this on a 4 point scale, and MOST of the kids pass the test in the "C" range (its just coded something different). The scores fall perfectly within the bell curve. This "research" he did, is just propoganda for school choice.......
This guy should be ashamed of himself for massaging this research to make it fit his agenda
again, student performance hasn't improved, its just easier to graduate, which we all knew carey wright did so she could inflate her resume......but that is a whole other issue than this dumpster fire of a policy brief.....
Children don't get "a share" of education funding, school districts do. I warned earlier that this new funding formula adopted by the Legislature (setting a base funding number "per student") was the camel getting his nose under the tent. Within a year or 2 we'll see the Legislature make it plain that the money is appropriated for private citizens. If so I'll adopt 20 frozen embryos and "home school" them. $6,500 x 20 = $130,000! I think I'll home school them in the Bahamas.
I’d like to make two points. First, my reaction to the comments. The less someone knows about something, the more willing they are to offer their opinion. Second, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics. Wait, I have another point. Some folks like to use the term government schools instead of public schools. But, if public funds are allowed to be used in private schools, don’t they then become government schools? Just sayin!
Districts are so top heavy with big salary folks they have to spin numbers
At the hearing in Congress today, it was stated that Sarah Huckabee Sanders raised the starting pay for teachers from $36,000 to $50,000.
Thank you Sarah for recognizing the worth of teachers.
How many of those who are chronically absent still get promoted or graduate?
School is the only place I know where the worse you do your job the more you get paid. In any other business when people are that bad at their job they are replaced.
June 20, 2024 at 4:25 PM, you can raise all the embryos you want, but without birth certificates, and immunization records, you will not enroll them in a state certified system. Bill Dees strikes out again.
Mr Carswell supports keeping education underfunded and then whines it’s not doing well enough.
Fund 100% of MAEP for five years & check back then.
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