Jess DeCarolis: When Miracles Become Mirage

Mississippi has received a lot of attention in the news about its “education miracle,” most recently from the Agency of Education’s Communication Director (Rutland Herald Opinion, March 19, 2026). Curiosity is healthy; but cherry-picking is not.

We should always be in a learning orientation when it comes to our kids. But, we can’t brush over the state-wide third-grade retention policy as easily as many have when referencing Mississippi’s 2024 NAEP performance. 

Consider the 2026 Royal Statistical Society brief from Howard Wainer (formerly principle researcher at the Education Testing Service) and his colleagues about Mississippi’s performance and issues of selection bias:

“The improvement in the average performance of Mississippi’s fourth-graders on NAEP was preceded by two key changes in their schooling in third grade [...] it was the second component of the Mississippi Miracle, a new retention policy, that is likely to be the key to their success. Third-graders who fail to meet reading standards are forced to repeat the third grade. Prior to 2013, a higher percentage of third-graders moved on to the fourth grade and took the NAEP fourth-grade reading test. After 2013, only those students who did well enough in reading moved on to the fourth grade and took the test.” 

Further, in 2023, prior to the publication of the 2024 NAEP results, researchers from Boston University cautioned the following:

[...] the analysis cannot entirely disentangle the extent to which the observed benefits in ELA are due to the additional year of instruction [...] Furthermore, that the analysis does not find a corresponding impact on math outcomes is inconsistent with results from similar studies in other localities and worthy of further consideration. 

Now consider Vermont’s NAEP performance compared to both the national average and to Mississippi based on the Nations Report Card. Yes, Mississippi exceeded the national average in 4th grade reading. Yet VT, which has no statewide retention policy and has recently been recognized for inclusive practices in a recent report from the Agency of Education, performed to the national average in 4th grade reading (with a scaled score of 213) as well as in 8th grade reading (257). Conversely, Mississippi was significantly below the national average and Vermont  in 8th grade reading (253). 

Just as it is cause for celebration for Mississippi to exceed the national average in 4th grade NAEP reading, I do wonder why we aren't celebrating that VT 8th graders exceeded the national average in  Math. With a scaled score of  276, Vermont was four points higher than the national average and seven points above Mississippi. Only ten states performed better in 8th grade Math and only nine states performed better in 8th grade reading. In both instances one of the “states” includes the Department of Defense. And yet, repeatedly, Governor Phil Scott describes VT student performance as “middle of the pack” (see his 2025 Education Summit speech). 

No one is suggesting that Vermont shouldn’t invest in improving literacy and numeracy, but we do need to modify our perspective on making blanket comparisons to other states. If Vermont wants to consider a state-wide third-grade retention policy, which researchers say was a major contributing factor to Mississippi’s literacy success, then political actors should say so.

Finally, here's another lesson from Mississippi published by Jackson State University in 2019, this one on Mississippi’s school district consolidation policy in rural areas: 

Overall, t-test findings indicated test scores from Pre-consolidation to Post-consolidation significantly decreased for Language Proficiency, Language Advanced, Math Minimum, Math Proficiency, and Math Advanced. [...] In light of this study’s findings, and assuming the primary goal of school consolidation is improving student academic performance, this study recommends policymakers proceed cautiously before mandating future school consolidations. The research evidence suggests school consolidation may not be the best approach to improving academic performance in some small rural school districts.

If we’re going to be in the business of taking education policy lessons from Mississippi, let’s not cherry pick which lessons we learn.

Jess DeCarolis