Mississippi Education News: Literacy, Teacher Pay, and Vouchers

Public education in Mississippi is in an unusual moment: the state that spent decades at the bottom of national reading rankings now scores above the national average in fourth-grade reading, yet still pays its teachers less than any other state and is in open conflict over whether tax dollars should follow students to private schools. The short version of Mississippi education news in 2025 and 2026 is that the literacy reforms launched in 2013 are holding, the legislature is trying to copy the formula for math and middle-school reading, a new funding formula has replaced the long-underfunded old one, and a sweeping school-choice bill died in the Senate.

How the Reading Gains Happened

The foundation is the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, signed in 2013. It required every K–3 student to be screened for reading problems within 30 days of the school year, with midyear and end-of-year checks, and it put struggling readers on an Individual Reading Plan with intensive intervention.¹

The piece that drew the most attention was retention. Starting in 2014–2015, third graders who scored at the lowest achievement level on the state reading test could not move to fourth grade. In 2018–2019 the bar was raised so students had to score above the lowest two levels.² Good-cause exemptions apply to English learners with fewer than two years of instruction, students with qualifying disabilities, and students already retained after years of intensive help. Retained students must get at least 90 minutes of daily research-based reading instruction, a high-performing teacher, and a Read at Home plan for families.¹

What made Mississippi’s rollout different was the infrastructure around the law. The state moved from balanced literacy to the science of reading and spent $9.5 million in year one to train every K–3 teacher through LETRS, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. Teacher candidates had to pass a foundational reading assessment to get licensed, and that requirement extended to the faculty training them.³⁴

The Mississippi Department of Education also deployed its own literacy coaches rather than leaving hiring to districts. Coaches spent two to three days a week in a single school for a full year, working with teachers and principals. Evaluations with the Regional Education Laboratory Southeast found teacher knowledge of early literacy skills rose from the 48th to the 59th percentile, and instructional quality in target schools climbed from the 31st to the 58th.³

Two people are usually credited for driving the work: Dr. Carey Wright, state superintendent from 2013 to 2022, and Dr. Kymyona Burk, the state’s K–12 literacy director who ran day-to-day implementation.⁵⁶ Writing in The Atlantic in 2026, Rachel Canter argued other states copying Mississippi are picking up the phonics curricula but missing the coaching, leadership continuity, and years of disciplined implementation that, in her view, were “much harder to pull off” and equally essential.⁷

What the 2024 NAEP Results Show

The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, released in early 2025, gave the clearest proof yet that the reforms are holding. Mississippi fourth graders scored 219 in reading, five points above the national average of 214 and 16 points above the state’s 1998 score of 203.⁸ Fourth-grade math at 239 matched the national average, up from 234 in 2022.⁹

When Urban Institute researchers adjusted for student demographics, Mississippi ranked first in the country in fourth-grade reading and math and fourth in eighth-grade reading. Economically disadvantaged students ranked first nationally in reading and second in math, African American students third in both subjects, and Hispanic students first in reading.¹⁰

Eighth grade is a different story. Reading scores there were four points below the national average in 2024, and math remained below pre-pandemic levels. Those gaps are the smallest the state has recorded, but the contrast with the fourth-grade picture is one of the main openings critics use to question how deep the gains run.⁹ A 2026 analysis by researchers from Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth ranked Mississippi seventh among 38 states in both math and reading growth between 2022 and 2025, with average math performance rising 0.4 grade levels, though both subjects stayed below 2019 levels.¹¹

Is the Miracle Real? The Selection-Bias Debate

The sharpest academic criticism comes from Howard Wainer, Irina Grabovsky, and Daniel Robinson, who argue that holding low-performing third graders back removes them from the fourth-grade NAEP pool and inflates the state’s scores. They estimate even a 7 percent retention rate can produce a 0.15 standard deviation improvement from selection alone and contend retention accounts for “most” of the observed gains.¹²

A 2024 peer-reviewed study by Noah Spencer in Economics of Education Review reached a more measured result. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences method, Spencer calculated that retention explained roughly 22 percent of the treatment effect, not the whole thing, and that students exposed to the reforms from kindergarten through third grade gained 0.25 standard deviations in reading, about a year of academic progress.¹³¹⁴

Defenders note the largest NAEP gains occurred between 2013 and 2015, before retention was fully in effect. Harvard testing expert and former NAEP board member Andrew Ho said of the data, “I don’t see any smoking guns or red flags that make me say that they’re gaming NAEP.”¹⁵ Mississippi does retain more students than any other state. In 2018–2019, 8 percent of all K–3 students were held back, and after the higher cutoff, 10 percent of third graders were retained, against a national average near 3 percent.¹⁶

Extending the Model to Math and Middle School

With the literacy results in hand, the legislature passed Senate Bill 2294 in 2026, establishing the Mississippi Math Act and a framework called Moving Mathematics in Mississippi, or M3. The law requires math coaches in every school, with priority given to grades 2 through 6, along with universal K–5 math screeners, an Algebra Readiness Indicator for fifth graders, and personalized interventions.¹⁷ The Department of Education has been piloting math coaches since 2023.¹⁸

Unlike the literacy law, the Math Act does not include a promotion gate, though some lawmakers have said they want to add one. The same package bans “three-cueing” reading instruction in state-funded schools and requires evidence-based, science-of-reading practices in grades 4 through 8, extending the K–3 mandate into middle school.¹⁷

The New School Funding Formula

Mississippi replaced the chronically underfunded Mississippi Adequate Education Program with the Mississippi Student Funding Formula in 2024. The new system is a weighted per-pupil approach, with each student carrying a base cost of $6,695.34 in year one, adjusted for inflation.¹⁹ Additional weights add money for low-income students, English learners, career and technical education students, gifted students, and special education students on a tiered scale, with a sparsity multiplier for rural districts. The state’s share is the total formula cost minus a required local tax contribution.

A hold-harmless provision keeps any district from receiving less state money than it did in fiscal 2024 during the transition years through 2027. A structural change worth noting is that the formula now counts net enrollment rather than average daily attendance, so districts are no longer financially penalized for absences.²⁰

Total state K–12 support for fiscal 2026 reached about $3.32 billion, with the core formula at roughly $2.97 billion. Lawmakers added $16 million over the prior year, though the total fell short of a preliminary $3 billion estimate in part because enrollment dropped by about 6,000 students.²¹²² Even with the increase, Mississippi remains one of the lowest-spending states per pupil. The literacy program itself costs about $15 million a year, roughly $32 per student.¹⁴

Teacher Pay and a Worsening Shortage

Mississippi’s average teacher salary for 2024–2025 was $54,975, the lowest in the country for the second year running. The national average was $74,495. Starting pay was $43,814, ranking 43rd nationally.²³

The legislature approved a permanent $2,000 raise for certified teachers effective in 2026–2027, with additional $2,000 supplements for special education teachers, teacher assistants, school psychologists, and occupational therapists. School attendance officers got a $5,000 raise.²⁴ The budget for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2026 included $100 million specifically for the pay increases.²⁵

The shortage is getting worse anyway. Districts reported 3,815 unfilled teaching positions for 2025–2026, an increase of 851 vacancies over the prior year. Elementary accounted for the largest share at 1,378, followed by 955 high school vacancies and 529 at the middle school level. Another 284 licensed positions, including counselors and speech pathologists, were unfilled, along with more than 2,580 support staff roles.²³

To fill the gap, the state put $3.5 million into a Teacher Residency Program and $2.1 million into a remote teaching initiative that beams educators onto classroom screens across multiple districts at once.²⁵ New legislation also lets teachers and state employees return to work 30 days after retirement while continuing to collect pension benefits, with employers covering both the employer and employee contributions.²⁴

Vouchers and the School Choice Fight

The loudest education fight of 2026 was over House Bill 2, the Mississippi Education Freedom Act. House Republicans proposed Education Savings Accounts called Magnolia Student Accounts, letting parents use state funds for private school tuition, tutoring, testing, and other expenses. The bill called for $7,000 vouchers for up to 12,500 students at an estimated $87.5 million.²⁶ It would also have let charter schools open in any district regardless of the local public school rating and raised the share of non-licensed teachers allowed in charters from 25 to 50 percent.²⁷

The Senate killed it. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar said they would not back legislation sending public dollars to private schools. On February 3, 2026, the Senate Education Committee voted HB 2 down unanimously.²⁸ All 18 Democratic senators opposed the measure on grounds that it could drain funding from poorer districts, promote racial resegregation, and exclude non-affluent families. The Senate passed a narrower bill focused on public-to-public district transfers instead.²⁶

Mississippi currently has 10 charter schools, all authorized by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board. Six of the seven established charters hold accountability scores in the top half of their respective districts.²⁸

Federal Funding Whiplash

In early 2025, the Trump administration froze about $137 million in pandemic relief money allocated to Mississippi districts, saying it was no longer needed. Roughly 70 districts were affected; Jackson Public Schools alone had $4.5 million at risk for construction and instructional support.²⁹

In June 2025, Education Secretary Linda McMahon reversed course and restored the funds to all states, citing what the department called “basic fairness and uniformity problems” from litigation by Democratic-led states. Mississippi districts could immediately draw down their allocations, and the original March 2026 spending deadline was reinstated. The department warned that because the litigation was ongoing, the funding could be rescinded again.³⁰

Bigger federal cuts may still be coming. A House Appropriations Committee bill advanced in September 2025 proposed cutting Title I funding for low-income schools by 26 percent and the overall U.S. Department of Education budget by 15 percent. The Senate Appropriations Committee recommended a budget roughly $12 billion higher.³¹ A failed amendment by State Senator Derrick Simmons would have directed $138 million from the state’s rainy day fund to replace rescinded federal dollars; it was killed on procedural grounds.²²

Absenteeism, Graduation, and Dropouts

Chronic absenteeism is still a problem. As of 2025, 28 percent of Mississippi students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of the school year. That is about 13 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.¹¹

The legislature responded with SB 2103, which requires districts to adopt formal attendance policies by August 2026. Students must attend at least 66 percent of the school day to count as present. Once a student misses 10 percent of allotted days, attendance officers must start tiered interventions including parent notification, barrier identification, external referrals, and an individualized attendance success plan. Schools whose chronic absenteeism tops 10 percent for any grade or subgroup must publish a written reduction plan.³²

Graduation is trending the other direction. The four-year graduation rate reached 90.8 percent for 2024–2025, the highest on record, up from 87.7 percent in 2021. The dropout rate fell to 7 percent from 8.5 percent the year before.³³

Who’s Running the Department and Where It’s Headed

Dr. Lance Evans took over as State Superintendent in July 2024, succeeding Wright after an interim period. Under Evans, the Department of Education has created a new Office of School and District Transformation to support low-performing schools and a Mississippi Superintendent Institute for district leadership training. Reported results for 2024–2025 include 77.3 percent of third graders hitting proficiency on the initial reading assessment, a 56.7 percent pass rate on Advanced Placement exams, and dual-credit enrollment reaching 17.3 percent of all students with a 96.3 percent success rate.³⁴

In March 2026, the State Board of Education approved an updated pre-K through grade 12 strategic plan, effective July 1, 2026. The plan sets six priorities: access to high-quality early childhood programs, literacy and math skill development across all grades, graduation preparedness for college or career, continuous improvement in schools and districts, full staffing with qualified educators, and safe and supportive school environments.³⁵ Mississippi remains one of five states meeting all 10 quality standards set by the National Institute for Early Education Research for its publicly funded pre-K program.³⁴

1
Mississippi Legislature. SB 2347 – Literacy-Based Promotion Act
2
Mississippi Department of Education. LBPA Implementation Guide
3
ALIC Coalition. How State and Federal R&D Investments Helped Make the Mississippi Miracle Possible
4
George W. Bush Presidential Center. Mississippi’s Reading Revolution
5
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Exit Interview – Carey Wright
6
NAGB. Kymyona Burk Board Member Profile
7
The Atlantic. States Are Learning the Wrong Lesson From the Mississippi Miracle
8
National Center for Education Statistics. NAEP 2024 Reading State Snapshot – Mississippi Grade 4
9
Mississippi First. Contextualizing Mississippi’s 2024 NAEP Scores
10
Mississippi Department of Education. NAEP Rankings One Pager
11
Mississippi Today. Reading Mississippi Gains Pandemic
12
Columbia University Statistical Modeling Blog. How Much of Mississippi’s Education Miracle Is an Artifact of Selection Bias
13
ScienceDirect. Comprehensive Early Literacy Policy and the Mississippi Miracle
14
Arkansas Advocate. Mississippi’s Education Miracle – A Model for Global Literacy Reform
15
ExcelinEd. Four Reasons Why Mississippi’s Reading Gains Are Neither Myth nor Miracle
16
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Mississippi Rising – A Partial Explanation for Its NAEP Improvement
17
ExcelinEd in Action. Mississippi Passes Major Education Reform Package
18
Mississippi Today. Mississippi Miracle Math
19
Mississippi Legislature. HB 4130 – Mississippi Student Funding Formula
20
Mississippi Department of Education. FY25 Mississippi Student Formula Funding
21
Mississippi Legislative Budget Office. Budget Summary – 2025 Legislative Session
22
Magnolia Tribune. Legislature Adds $16 Million to Education Funding Formula
23
Clarion Ledger. How Much Do Mississippi Teachers Make
24
The Parents’ Campaign. Legislature Adopts School Funding, Teacher Pay Raise Bills
25
Mississippi Today. Teacher Pay Raise Education Budget
26
Mississippi Today. Mississippi School Choice Battle – House, Senate, Teacher Raise
27
Mississippi Legislature. HB 2 – Mississippi Education Freedom Act
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Mississippi Today. School Choice Charter Mississippi Public Education
29
News From the States. See How Much Your Mississippi School District Stands to Lose From Trump’s Federal Funding Freeze
30
Mississippi Today. Feds Unfreeze Mississippi Education Money
31
K-12 Dive. House Committee Cut Federal Education Title I Special Education
32
Magnolia Tribune. Legislature Revises Full Day School Attendance Language
33
News From the States. More Mississippi Students Are Graduating Despite Pandemic-Era Disruptions
34
Mississippi Department of Education. State Superintendent
35
WJTV. Mississippi State Board of Education Approves Updated Strategic Plan