Over at the CommonWealth Beacon, Mississippi gets pride of place as the first mention in the continuing privatizer series "Why Massachusetts Needs Science of Reading."
"The data are clear: learning loss isn’t just lingering; in some cases, it’s worsening. The state’s press release announcing the recent MCAS results didn’t call it a “crisis,” but it should have. The severity of the problem isn’t a question, but whether we have the courage to act remains unknown...
Make the message clear: If you want better outcomes for kids, give every teacher the tools to get them there. Mississippi’s policy leaders invested in equipping all teachers to excel in teaching reading and math – before entering the classroom and while on the job. They trained 20,000 K–3 teachers in the science of reading, backed by state-funded literacy coaches who visited schools weekly."
Yeah, MA definitely needs advice from Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana.
I've been side eyeing the "Mississippi Miracle" for awhile now, so I truly appreciate this essay. All these miracles, from the Texas Miracle after NCLB to this one, deflate eventually.
I've always been semi-convinced that MS's success on 4th grade reading is due to gaming who gets tested.
Their reading scores shot up after they implemented mandatory retention for 3rd grade readers. This eliminated struggling readers from their 4th grade cohort the first year after implementation. I expected scores to drop down some on the next NAEP test as subsequent cohorts would include kids who initially failed 3rd grade reading (a year older, yes, but still probably not very strong readers). But the scores have continued to climb. Now I wonder, are the test gains real, or are they still finding ways to exclude kids who failed 3rd grade reading from their grade 4 NAEP samples?
Am I guilty of being a conspiracy theorist? Would it be possible to talk to some elementary principals in Mississippi to see how they find their NAEP samples and if there's any possibility that kids who failed 3rd grade reading are being excluded from the samples?
I guess the alternative theory is that MS does a good job of drilling the retained 3rd graders on how to do well on the test...but that those drills don't translate to long-term academic gains.
Over at the CommonWealth Beacon, Mississippi gets pride of place as the first mention in the continuing privatizer series "Why Massachusetts Needs Science of Reading."
"The data are clear: learning loss isn’t just lingering; in some cases, it’s worsening. The state’s press release announcing the recent MCAS results didn’t call it a “crisis,” but it should have. The severity of the problem isn’t a question, but whether we have the courage to act remains unknown...
Make the message clear: If you want better outcomes for kids, give every teacher the tools to get them there. Mississippi’s policy leaders invested in equipping all teachers to excel in teaching reading and math – before entering the classroom and while on the job. They trained 20,000 K–3 teachers in the science of reading, backed by state-funded literacy coaches who visited schools weekly."
Yeah, MA definitely needs advice from Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana.
https://commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/massachusetts-needs-an-education-blueprint/
I've been side eyeing the "Mississippi Miracle" for awhile now, so I truly appreciate this essay. All these miracles, from the Texas Miracle after NCLB to this one, deflate eventually.
I've always been semi-convinced that MS's success on 4th grade reading is due to gaming who gets tested.
Their reading scores shot up after they implemented mandatory retention for 3rd grade readers. This eliminated struggling readers from their 4th grade cohort the first year after implementation. I expected scores to drop down some on the next NAEP test as subsequent cohorts would include kids who initially failed 3rd grade reading (a year older, yes, but still probably not very strong readers). But the scores have continued to climb. Now I wonder, are the test gains real, or are they still finding ways to exclude kids who failed 3rd grade reading from their grade 4 NAEP samples?
Much like Florida, one would expect to have seen MS's 8th grade reading scores start to rise if their 4th grade scores were real. But that hasn't been the case (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/subject/publications/stt2024/pdf/2024220MS8.pdf).
Am I guilty of being a conspiracy theorist? Would it be possible to talk to some elementary principals in Mississippi to see how they find their NAEP samples and if there's any possibility that kids who failed 3rd grade reading are being excluded from the samples?
I guess the alternative theory is that MS does a good job of drilling the retained 3rd graders on how to do well on the test...but that those drills don't translate to long-term academic gains.