Using the logic of this explainer site to address the Mississippi Miracle

In 2013, the state of Mississippi passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act and, over the following decade, achieved remarkable gains in NAEP fourth-grade reading—rising from near the bottom to nearly the top of the state’s NAEP ranking, ahead of almost every other state. The Mississippi law emphasized an early focus on reading, beginning with pre-K, and required students in the early grades to meet a reading standard before advancing.

Thus far, no improvement for the eighth grade, but Mississippi reasons that the new law was not fully in place when the eighth graders were in pre-K.

In general, ten years is a long time across the pre-K–12 pipeline. That is a ten-year bloc of time students will never get back. Whether the Mississippi K–12 results will be lasting for subsequent fourth grades—and whether they will extend to the eighth grade—only NAEP assessments will tell. But in any case, kudos to Mississippi for its administrative effort.

Reality check: incremental vs. innovation: Rather than incremental change, Jamie Dimon urges the use of innovation—societal innovation—for sudden, unlimited-in-scope, and lasting change.

Either students maximally benefit during those once-in-a-lifetime years or they do not. Jamie Dimon urges the replacement of that incremental constraint with the dynamic of innovation and acceleration—as measured by the same hard-number metrics.

The future for a new cohort of K–12 students is here: innovation. It’s 2026.

Light-years beyond the technological and educational frameworks of early 1900s America, and far beyond the era when NAEP began formal assessments in the early 1970s—K–12 students must achieve well above any temptation to settle for minimum NAEP proficiency.

Concurrently, and as a best practice, even the most widely held assumptions must be evaluated and continually reevaluated. For instance, minimum NAEP proficiency must be considered not as a goal, but merely as a reference. Further, to capitalize on their strengths and to be competitive, K–12 students must seek performance in the upper deciles of NAEP. That is, the true competitive minimum is the highest decile a student can achieve.

So, back to the Mississippi miracle. Will their K–12 performance be concentrated in NAEP’s upper deciles—where it deserves to be and is capable of being?

Further, is it the excitement and attention surrounding the statewide effort—and resulting excitement during execution—that is the primary driver of the increase in fourth-grade reading results? And if so, is this an example of the Hawthorne effect, in which those gains may fade in future fourth-grade cohorts as those drivers diminish?

To see the Hawthorne effect, click the U.S. Department of Education link and scroll to “The elephant in the room—and its cousin.”

And for the eighth-grade cohort—far different from fourth graders—if their results do begin to show comparable improvement, will those gains likewise fade for subsequent eight-grade cohorts?

As noted, NAEP assessments will answer those questions. However, as Jamie Dimon might point out, and as beneficial as such improved administrative processes, rules, regulations, and codifications into state law may be, this admirable effort by Mississippi is incremental, as was the Texas Miracle before it (see NCLB, No Child Left Behind). That is, both the Texas Miracle and NCLB were administrative, not innovation.

50 states—50 labs—and an appropriately legislated central hub

Random K–12 efforts have unfolded across the 50 states for decades. The Texas Miracle and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act it inspired are examples. The first cost a state decades of lost K–12 student performance opportunity; the latter did the same nationwide. Even if these actions were incremental and administratively driven, their long-faded wake leaves valuable lessons. One of those lessons—echoed by the logic of Jamie Dimon—is that innovation is needed, in this case for K–12 student performance. The verdict is still out for the Mississippi Miracle, but surely there are positives—even if only a reminder that early learning is critical.

Texas, Mississippi, and the other 48 states, each a lab working simultaneously—with brilliance at each. Legislate a means to capture it.

Feed those efforts to a central K–12 performance hub that is Congressionally legislated to focus on true innovation, while simultaneously monitoring and sharing state and central hub efforts—doing so across all 50 states. An ongoing joint state–federal synergy could emerge—potentially unmatched in hard-number performance results for all K–12 students and all metrics, far beyond a single metric such as NAEP assessments. Innovation must serve as an all-metrics-at-once rapid-response—no clunkiness of ten-year losses.

With this conceptually simple but bold shift in federal strategy, innovation can be the change agent for national K–12 student performance. Results will be verifiable by metrics such as NAEP, the SAT, ACT, international programs such as PISA and TIMSS, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), the HSe4Metrics cap rate, and the platform’s internal metrics.

America’s K–12 solution must be a powerfully legislated central hub working in combination with all 50 states—in the example of Mississippi.