So if you remove all the bad test scores from the data set you can show that Mississippi actually has great test scores. Top tier analysis.
Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
51–60 of 230 posts
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#52"Painting the Deep South as an embarrassing cultural backwater is one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice among elites. It’s not just tolerated - it’s venerated." Warning: possible flame bait, though I do not intend it this way. I am serious. I've had this thought for quite a while: the (social) left could pivot and win by being more woke. WTF? What I mean by this is: expand diversity and inclusion to…
That sounds not so much more “woke”, but more like classical left-liberalism, sticking up for the disempowered and disadvantaged, regardless of identity group membership.
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#53"Painting the Deep South as an embarrassing cultural backwater is one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice among elites. It’s not just tolerated - it’s venerated." Warning: possible flame bait, though I do not intend it this way. I am serious. I've had this thought for quite a while: the (social) left could pivot and win by being more woke. WTF? What I mean by this is: expand diversity and inclusion to…
Coming from a lower-socio economic background - i.e. growing up poor - is very much a proper diversity characteristic (regardless of ethnicity or anything else).
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#54I'm still trying to pinpoint exactly why Oregon has some of the worst scores in the country (I believe it ranked dead-last this year when adjusted for socio-economic factors). When I see what's going on around me, I can only think it's somewhat related to broken family's and undisciplined kids. The stuff that my kids come home and tell me is happening in school is pretty mind blowing. I've also noticed a complete rev…
I'm no longer living in Oregon but remain closely connected. I can't opine to the behavioral challenges, but in terms of the raw score drop I think there's also the one-two punch here of:
1) Schools were closed from Covid for a long time. Not here to debate whether that was good/bad/otherwise, but it is factually accurate to say Oregon schools remained remote longer than almost any others in the country, and we now know the duration of closure had pretty direct influence on learning outcomes.
2) In the past decade the Portland metro area has seen an influx of migration from economically disadvantaged families who are immigrants / first generation citizens / non-native English speakers in the home. Students from these families are lagging significantly behind their peers in terms of post-Covid recovery, which if I recall correctly, follows national trends as well.
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#55This was very interesting to read, and news to me. It's gratifying to see Mississippi prove that it's possible to break out of a pattern of failure. I would love to see a discussion around the specific policies and practices that MS has put in place to actually achieve these results. The article doesn't really discuss that.
That's because the article is really about politics, not education. Education was just a hook for the author to hang a political point on.
Just to clarify to those reading the comments first, the political point he's making is not to ignore Mississippi just because it's Mississippi.
He has warnings for both Democrats and Republicans at the end and is pretty clearly not a fan of the way either party is approaching education at the national level right now. He is drawing attention to the fact that some red states with historically bad schools have started pulling ahead of some blue states with historically good schools, but his interest is in making sure we learn from that, not scoring culture war points.
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#56This article is advocating that using poverty-adjusted scores is a better way to assess student education levels. I just can't agree with that.
"Your children aren't just dumber, they're also poorer" feels like a very spicy way to elevate the status of a state to me.
> Painting the Deep South as an embarrassing cultural backwater is one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice among elites.
> When the Urban Institute adjusted national test results for student demographics...
Clicking through to the Urban Institute, one then finds:
> comparing states’ NAEP scores is misleading for many purposes because states serve very different student populations. For example, more than 20 percent of children live in poverty in Alabama and Mississippi, compared with less than 10 percent in New Hampshire and Vermont
Pardon me, but 20% of your children living in poverty is my personal exact definition for an embarrassing cultural backwater.
If adjusting for poverty is so important, maybe the biggest problem is governments deciding intentionally to let children suffer so much from poverty!
And if poverty and hunger are so strongly connected to education outcomes, which state just again for the second year in a row rejected school lunch funding for poor families? https://mississippitoday.org/2025/02/03/mississippi-again-tu...
"Oh but our schools are good actually!"
"Oh but your children are starving and you think that's fine!"
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#57I am much less interested in why MS schools are doing so much better - which don't get me wrong, is great, and I hope studied and modeled in better-funded states - than I am in why other schools are doing worse.
Taking that first chart into account, if Maine stayed around a ~225 for the last 20 years, and Mississippi went from 203 to 220, that's great for Mississippi but not necessarily an indictment of anything Maine is doing wrong.
But not only do you have Mississippi gaining an impressive amount of ground, you have 4th graders in 2024 Maine 1.5 grade levels worse than 4th graders in 2004 Maine.
If I was an educational policymaker in Maine I'd be looking for who to fire and it'd probably take a bit of work to convince the answer isn't "everyone."
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the reason the left trashes this segment of the country is for two reasons. First, I don't think they're fully aware of how different the circumstances are for a middle-class (sub)urban person and a poor rural one. I doubt many "coastal elites" have spent much time in rural Alabama, for example. Second, they're able to extend empathy to the ignorant poor in other countries because they don't have to suffer th…
Spoken like a rich white liberal. I grew up in Mississippi white and poor, and I had friends (when we could get away with that) who were black and poor. If you haven't noticed the way those latter are kept apart - quite literally the oldest play in America - then you haven't been nearly as attentive as you imagine yourself to be. The ignorant contempt you display here confirms it. Well, as you correctly note, ignoran…
Sure, there are good people there. But the people at the highest rungs of society there (doctors, lawyers, etc.) did perpetuate 1950s-level racism. Our family was told in no uncertain terms that they would not stand for us selling our house to a black family for example. I heard white kids saying slurs constantly, and not in a "rapping along to a song" kind of way.
Denying my personal experience and calling it ignorance is pretty fucking arrogant of you.
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ll explain it clearly: it is impossible to accommodate someone who wants you dead.
It doesn't seem to stop people from having sympathy for the victims of collective punishment, like Palestinian Muslims whose social views tend toward the extreme right, in other countries. It's hard, I agree. When someone hates you it's by far the easiest path to hate them back. But that's not going to change anyone's mind. It will make them double down. Edit: I'm not bashing Queers for Palestine. It's brilliant. It'…
I'm trying and failing to square the idea that liberals just need to "appeal to the rural lower class" with the idea that failing to do so is why Clinton lost. The Clintons come from Arkansas. Advocating for the rural/conservative lower class has been their M.O. since the 70s. It was a cornerstone of Hillary's campaigns, and a major focus of where she spent time campaigning.
If you don't know that about Clinton's strategy, are you really the right person to be commentating on how she should have built her campaign instead?
Re: Mississippi Can't Possibly Have Good Schools
#60This was very interesting to read, and news to me. It's gratifying to see Mississippi prove that it's possible to break out of a pattern of failure. I would love to see a discussion around the specific policies and practices that MS has put in place to actually achieve these results. The article doesn't really discuss that.
They hold students back if they don't pass a basic reading literacy test in third grade.
They invested heavily in early literacy programs and literacy training for K-3 teachers.