> Some have called it the “Mississippi miracle” ...
> A clear policy story is behind these improvements: imposing high standards while also giving schools the resources they needed to meet them. In 2013, Mississippi enacted a law requiring that third graders pass a literacy exam to be promoted to the next grade. It didn’t just issue a mandate, though; it began screening kids for reading deficiencies, training instructors in how to teach reading better (by, among other things, emphasizing phonics), and hiring literacy coaches to work in the lowest-performing schools. Louisiana’s improvements came about after a similar policy cocktail was administered, starting in 2021.
I would be interested to know more about the approach with literacy coaches. I donate to a charity that does 1 on 1 reading tutoring: https://readingpowerinc.org/
If we cannot as a society teach our children how to read, something is very wrong and we need to invest heavily in fixing it.