Mississippi still hugs the bottom as the 48th best state, according to the 2025 U.S. News and World Report “Best States” rankings. The state has come in 48th or worse since U.S. News started the rankings.
Holding the state down are continued low rankings in components for health care (50th), economy (49th), infrastructure (47th), and fiscal stability (47th). Other components fare better: crime and corrections (20th), natural environment (31st), opportunity (31st), and education (34th). Two components shown notable improvement since 2018. Education moved from 46th to 34th and opportunity from 49th to 31st. Rachel Canter, executive director of Mississippi First, which helped start the “Mississippi miracle,” recently touted Mississippi’s education improvements in the Magnolia Tribune. She recalled that when she began lobbying the legislature in 2005, “too many of Mississippi’s leaders at that time did not believe that our children, and our state, could make real progress in education.” “Today, Mississippi has not only met the national average in math at fourth grade, we have surpassed it in reading,” she boasts. “It is a stunning achievement.” Yet, this is not enough, she notes. “Even with our comparatively stellar results, a majority of our fourth and eighth graders have not yet reached proficiency in reading and math on the National Assessment to Education Progress (NAEP), our only national measure of achievement.” And, “by eighth grade, our students lose ground in proficiency on both the state assessment and the NAEP.” Plus, “only about 16% of our high school juniors scored high enough on the math section of the ACT to be ‘college ready.’”
The U.S. News report also indicated there is more work to be done. While our fourth and eighth grade reading and math scores improved and our high school graduation rate soared to 8th nationally, our graduates’ college readiness (based on ACT and SAT scores) remained at 48th. Strangely, the IHL board wants students to do less toward their college readiness. Despite championing STEM education, the board in April eliminated science from the ACT composite score universities will consider for admission. This can only diminish high schools’ emphasis on science education. “The science section (will) no longer (be) included in the composite score calculation,” announced Dr. Casey Prestwood, Associate Commissioner for Academic and Student Affairs. “We still have work to do to ensure an excellent public education for every child in Mississippi,” said Canter, challenging legislators to do more to boost education improvement. She wants them to: 1) adapt the Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act to middle school; 2) create a state math initiative; and 3) double down on high quality instructional materials and support for teachers. “Your education is your life – guard it well” – Proverbs 4:13. Crawford is the author of A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives.
26 comments:
First, look at the textbooks used in best school systems.
Next teach critical thinking and logic so children learn how to tell fact from fiction and opinion. Teach them to write well and how to footnote. It's not enough to read words if you can't comprehend them or write coherently and accurately.
Require a course in ethics. The Ten Commandments is a good start but if you don't understand that not bearing false witness requires understanding what is true and what is false, and includes stealing the words of others and taking credit for the work and words of others as your own, you will still have broken a Commandment. If you don't know treating others like you wish to be treated includes all humans of all ages, you still condemn yourself.
Lowering the bar is never the solution. Fake news
you are going to have to practice segregation. And i do not mean racial segregation. I mean like what they do in Asia where the smart kids and dumb kids are put in entirely different schools.
Raise the bar!
STEM rules.
Not to worry as Tater Tot has this.
"...and includes stealing the words of others and taking credit for the work and words of others as your own..." But wait, how would many of the holders of PhDs in Mississippi otherwise be able to receive those degrees?
Sure, but we beat Louisiana. Complete list linked above.
“It is a stunning achievement.”
Just to come up to average. Sounds like they do not have much faith in the schools or the children.
I want to know when Shad will get some more consultants hired so we can have some impactful press releases to git-r-dun.
Mississippi is #50 in health care. My conclusion is that many health care professionals either raised here and/or educated here do not want to live and work here.
In my opinion, and I have no educational expertise, until we can define a distinct outcome for success, any comparison is foolish.
If, high school graduation is the desired outcome, yet, we are graduating students that aren't functional, from a real life standpoint, what have we accomplished?
May 11, 2025 at 8:57 AM, used a word that is considered to be vile, but their conclusion is correct, segregation is key to success. All children are not intellectually equal. We must accept this truth for real success.
So they lowered the standards until everyone passed? Will school vouchers be just like HUD vouchers?
8:57am: So the way that would work is that every kid in America would take a test in 8th grade and be on their way to a technical path or an academic path. The problem with that is it is essentially a never ending caste system because not all US 8th graders get to the starting line equally prepared where it is more of a choice than a sorting by Big Brother. I’d be for it if that were the case. Nah. I like freedom to choose even if that means choosing unwisely.
The science subject was axed to allow students to gain entry to college when they would otherwise not qualify. We are fast moving to a point where there will be no entry requirements for college. This is what educators want. Everyone is a winner except society.
Curses! We do all we can to look terrible and yet people still decide to come here. What are we not doing to make them not want to live with us?
Oh, but hold on...The think tanks, opinion-writers and radio talking heads say 'school choice' will solve our education problems.
Our legislature will solve these bumps in the road. Just look what they've done with PERS over the past 30 years.
Just think how much worse things could be in Mississippi if there wasn't a legislature to keep things going!
I don't have a clue as to the reason why but I'd say I'd care more about the incoming freshmen's capabilities to learn than ostensibly be some well rounded scholar. Why would anyone care if a new English major did good enough on the Science part of the ACT? Before you say math, that shows cognitive ability to think in steps. If anything, if you plan to be a science major, maybe their score needs to be a consideration.
America did that until about 1980. America did a lot of things that worked until about 1980.
And yet the "Mississippi Miracle" of their educational achievements was fully swallowed...even on the national level, hook, line, and bobber.
“Our graduates’ college readiness (based on ACT and SAT scores) remained at 48th”
Allegedly, 32.1% of Mississippians were eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 2020 (for the Liberal Arts majors, this = almost 1/3), so are we to be surprised? Would more of your Democrat Party DEI programs drastically change those stats for the better, Bill? Or how about more of your Democrat soft on crime policies and more of your Democrats absolute love of the criminals that commit those crimes?
If Bill, Sid, and The Mississippi Today’ers (especially the judge briber) would leave this state and take all their crime loving Democrats with them, how much better would Mississippi’s stats be then?
The national ACT organization made the science portion optional, just like the writing section so IHL is simply following in their footsteps. I think it's garbage to make the section optional, but it didn't start with the IHL.
@12:59 - Gotta love it when someone slaughters the words of someone else to have it appear that the latter drew a stupid conclusion.
Regarding testing and students deciding on a pathway, 8:57 didn't come anywhere close to what you pretend he said.
To quote Honest Abe, "So, you're saying a Chestnut Horse is the same as a Horse Chestnut?"
Look to what other countries surpassing the US in educational achievement are doing, then do that. That would make the most sense, but, no, the US can never go that path because free-dumb.
Also, consider the what the US is working with here. A significant portion of the student body is a drag on any measure of academic achievement.
The US is stuck playing a bad hand.
From ACT:
Beginning with the April 2025 National online test, the ACT Composite score will be based on performance on the English, math, and reading sections. Science and writing will be optional.
The “Mississippi Miracle”!is fake news.These kids are just as dumb today as they were 5 and 10 years ago. The majority of them don’t care about a true education and their parents (well, mom at home) don’t care about education either. When a huge percent of the kids are born bastards, you will probably fail.
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