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For the past several years, education has been captivated by yet another “miracle” story. Mississippi, persistently among the lowest-performing states in the nation, has posted some of the strongest gains in the country, especially in early literacy. In a new paper and a companion essay in The Atlantic, Rachel Canter of the Progressive Policy Institute urges us to retire that language. Mississippi’s gains, she argues, are better understood not as a miracle, but a marathon: 26.2 miles, run step by step, over years and even decades. No shortcuts, no charismatic visionary rattling the china, no breakthrough moment. Just sustained effort, aligned policy, and a surprising degree of disciplined follow-through.
It’s a bracing and necessary corrective. Education has always had a weakness for miracle stories. We want to believe that somewhere, someone has discovered the right program or policy, the right idea that can be lifted out of one locale and parachuted into another. In this telling, decades become moments, complicated enterprises become transferable “programs,” and sustained effort is mere magic.
The popular version of the Mississippi story is by now familiar and reductive: The state embraced the “science of reading,” overhauled its literacy instruction, implemented third-grade retention, and saw dramatic gains. There’s truth in that account, but it’s incomplete in ways that matter. Canter is well-positioned to paint a fuller picture. Before decamping for PPI and think-tank world, she was the founder of Mississippi First, a policy and advocacy organization that played a key role in advancing and sustaining the state’s reforms.
Her paper fills in the missing context. Mississippi’s progress rests on four interlocking elements: clear standards and assessments; real consequences for failure; a shift toward evidence-based instruction; and sustained support for implementation. Just as important, these elements did not arrive all at once. Canter’s timeline shows that Mississippi’s accountability infrastructure predates its literacy reforms—a sequencing that suggests these gains were not the product of a single policy shift, but of a system built over time.
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