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More than a decade ago, Mississippi was where Michigan is now: Near the bottom of the country in literacy outcomes and aggressively seeking solutions to fix the crisis.
In 2013, Mississippi’s fourth graders ranked 49th in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with just 21% of those students testing at or above proficient on the exam.
What unfolded over the next decade has been described by many as the “Mississippi miracle,” but state education officials point to intentional steps – teacher training, hiring literacy coaches, and strengthening accountability standards – that helped propel the Magnolia State to 21st in fourth grade reading by 2022.
“Our model was built over time,” said Kymyona Burk, former state literacy director for the Mississippi Department of Education. “We continued to implement our plan and monitored progress on the ground through data. If the plan wasn’t working as effectively as we believed it could, we course-corrected.”
To execute its own miracle, Michigan lawmakers have invested in training for teachers and proven curriculum, while also looking to other states with successful outcomes, like Mississippi and Maryland, for inspiration. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer singled out literacy as a top funding priority in her last year in office, with more than $123 million committed to train teachers in the science of reading, which focuses on phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
“We’ve made a lot of progress these last eight years, and the budgets we reached with bipartisan support will mean these education priorities will continue long after this administration ends,” said Michelle Richard, senior literacy advisor for the Whitmer administration.
Still, Michigan’s efforts, which began in 2016 with the Read by Grade Three law, have not moved the needle on test scores. The state’s fourth-grade reading scores have continued to trend downward, ranking 44th nationally on the most recent NAEP exam.
Michigan gubernatorial candidates — Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James — both point to improving literacy as a key mission. Some educators and advocates say success will require consistent funding for teacher training and aligning the reading curriculum to make Michigan’s education system less “fragmented.”
“I think one of the things that’s really happening in our state right now that has not happened before is the state is saying we need to be speaking a common language around literacy,” Education Policy Innovation Collaborative Director Madeline Mavrogordato said.
Mississippi’s blueprint includes A-F grades, third grade retention law
The seeds for Mississippi’s turnaround were planted in 2013, with laws enacted that committed funding to literacy and early childhood education. The funding was used to hire literacy coaches and require professional learning for all prekindergarten through third grade teachers, former State Superintendent Carey Wright said.
The state also implemented a strict A-F school grading system that aligned accountability standards and rewarded schools for progress and growth of their lowest-performing students. It also overhauled its state test to line up more closely with the NAEP.
“Too many people think, ‘Oh, well, if I just pass a law that says we’ve got to implement the science of reading, that’s it, and that’s not it,” said Wright, who has implemented similar measures since being named Maryland’s state superintendent in 2024. “Everything was sequenced. It was structured. We focused big time on implementation and monitoring the daylights out of our results.”
Mississippi also passed a “third grade gate law,” which required students to pass a state reading test to advance to fourth grade. (Michigan’s Read by Three law included a similar provision, which was controversial and later rescinded.)
Skeptics of the Mississippi miracle have said the retention law inflated test scores by removing students who were held back from taking the test as fourth graders. But Wright pointed to a Boston University study that found students who were retained under the policy in 2014-15 achieved “substantially higher” English language arts scores by sixth grade.
Burk, now a senior policy fellow at ExcelinEd, echoed Wright’s sentiments, noting that when Mississippi’s fourth graders reached the national average in reading on NAEP for the first time in 2019, less than 5% of the class had been retained in third grade.
Michigan’s literacy curriculum is fragmented, report finds
For Michigan to have success boosting literacy, it should align its curriculum to be less fragmented, Mavrogordato said.
A 2024 report examining English curriculum used by schools across the state found elementary teachers used 444 different resources, the majority of which were not evidence-based, she said.
In 2024, lawmakers passed a literacy and dyslexia law that gave more than $150 million in grants to schools to pay for intervention literacy materials, professional learning for teachers, and assessments approved by the Michigan Department of Education. It also approved curriculum and screening assessments that use the science of reading to improve instruction.
But the state stopped short of requiring districts to use curriculum aligned to the science of reading. Instead, the state budget last year required schools to notify parents if they’re not using an evidence-based curriculum. If schools fail to notify parents, they risk losing up to 5% of their state aid.
Michigan also has looked at practices used in other states like Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey that include statewide coaching models, structured literacy requirements, and early screening systems to inform its approach, MDE spokesperson Ken Coleman said.
Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia who chairs the state Senate Education Committee, opposes certain aspects of Mississippi’s approach, including its third grade retention law, which she described as a “gimmick” to hold back students ahead of the fourth grade NAEP. Polehanki sponsored the 2023 legislation that eliminated retention of third graders, describing the measure as being “catastrophic” to a child’s psyche in the long term.
Polehanki said that while Mississippi has done some good things to turn around its literacy outcomes, she believes the funding commitment to education made in Massachusetts is one Michigan should follow, noting its per student funding far outpaces Michigan. She also wants to make kindergarten mandatory.
“You want to see a marathon and a miracle?” Polehanki said. ”Look at (Massachusetts’) NAEP scores — look who’s at the top. You’re going to see Massachusetts every time because they spend double what we do on education. It’s very important to fund these initiatives.”
Rep. Nancy DeBoer, a Republican from Holland who sponsored legislation requiring training for K-5 teachers, said it’s important for teachers to help children understand the right way to learn how to read through phonics-based instruction. DeBoer also introduced a bill that would require teacher preparation programs to include science of reading training.
“Every teacher that I’ve talked to who’s taken this course is so excited to approach each student about how to read, and they feel so empowered with how to diagnose where the student is getting off track, and how to prescribe what they need to do in order to conquer it, and to understand how to read,” she said.
In several ways, the Waterford School District’s commitment to improving its literacy outcomes mirrors the path education leaders took in Mississippi.
Waterford used COVID relief funds and state literacy grants to align its curriculum and train all of its K-5 teachers in the science of reading in 2024-25. The complete overhaul, which included two years of intensive Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, or LETRS, training, was critical in teaching children who struggled to learn to read, said Mary Craite, a veteran elementary school teacher at Waterford.
The training revealed “missing pieces” that had eluded the 41-year elementary teacher throughout her career.
“You start digging deeper for kids, and you realize where the holes are,” said Craite, who is also president of the district’s teachers union. “For a long time, we didn’t know.”
Waterford Superintendent Adam Martin said he is encouraged to see state funding for LETRS training in this year’s budget, but it doesn’t cover all K-5 teachers. He hopes the state will continue to pay for teacher training even if there are “rainy days” ahead.
“We need a commitment from everyone to be able to continue to do it,” he said. “If we want to guarantee literacy, we have to continue to fund it. We have to continue to innovate. We have to continue to work collaboratively from the teacher’s desk to the governor’s desk.”
This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Detroit and the Detroit Free Press on covering key education issues in the race for Michigan’s next governor.