Like a few brave flowers blooming among weeds, several southern states have emerged as educational success stories, at least in the subject of reading. It turns out that, surprise, surprise, the difference in a nutshell was implementation of the tried-and-true phonics instruction method in their public schools.

An article by the online financial, economic, and political information source, ZeroHedge, singled out as an example the GEO Prep Mid City Academy, a K-8 public charter school in Baton Rouge, LA, “which is almost entirely filled with disadvantaged black students drawn from a lottery.” The school reportedly received failing grades for performance until it assumed new leadership in 2017, after which it “steadily improved and landed in the top third statewide in reading proficiency last year.”

The difference-maker was a focus “on the basics of learning: a proven curriculum, teachers trained to master it, and testing to hold everyone accountable for progress.” According to Kevin Teasley, the head of GEO Academies, a network of eight charter schools located in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana and in Gary, Indiana: “We are just completely devoted to academic achievement. Our success comes from our repetitive and long-term commitment to getting results.”

Although as Education Reporter has repeatedly documented, charter schools often provide a better curriculum than traditional public schools, ZeroHedge contends that the GEO Prep Mid City Academy “is emblematic of the surprising public school revival in a handful of mostly southern states, with Louisiana and Mississippi leading the way ... As public education sinks deeper into a crisis of low performance and high absenteeism, the southern states are demonstrating how schools can significantly lift student achievement.”

In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, ZeroHedge points out, “it took many years to persuade districts to replace a mishmash of ineffective reading curricula with content backed by research that was vetted by the states. Just as important, teachers had to undergo intensive training to understand the many components of the science of reading....” Teachers colleges obviously fail to prepare them to provide the phonics instruction so necessary for creating proficient readers.

Historical context

ZeroHedge expressed surprise at how Louisiana and Mississippi could lead the rise in academic achievement given the fact that they are among the poorest states in the nation, a condition the article attributed to “the particularly deep penetration of slavery in their economies and their subsequent anti-union laws that have suppressed wages.” While there may be some truth in those assumptions, Phyllis Schlafly could have told them it was all in the method of teaching reading.

Additionally, the inimitable Thomas Sowell showed in his book, Social Justice Fallacies, that not all economic depression can be traced to race or even to slavery. He cited the Appalachia region of the country, for example, which he described as “more than 90 percent white,” but where “the median household income is not only less than half the median household income of white Americans in the country as a whole, but also thousands of dollars less than the median household income of black Americans in the country as a whole.” Sowell disclosed that, in 2014, New York Times Magazine rated American counties in economic terms, and “six of the bottom 10 counties were in eastern Kentucky,” which census data showed at the time to have populations that were “more than 90 percent white.”

While the turbulence of the post-Civil War era hampered reconstruction in the ravaged south, a variety of factors contributed to the region’s lack of economic progress well into the 20th century. Interestingly, History.com documents that it was “the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party” after the war ended, “which began with the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867,” that allowed newly enfranchised black citizens to gain “a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress.”

But by 1876, “only Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina were still in Republican hands. In the contested presidential election that year, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes reached a compromise with Democrats in Congress: In exchange for certification of his election, he acknowledged Democratic control of the entire South.”

History.com further notes:

• The Reconstruction Act of 1867 aimed to reintegrate the Southern states but faced opposition, particularly from Southern Democrats who resisted changes to the social order.... Ultimately, the Reconstruction era ended in 1877 with the rise of the Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation and discrimination in the South.

In light of such historical fact, many find it curious that the Democratic Party managed to anoint itself as the champion of minorities, the downtrodden, and the poor.

Today’s reality

Today, the improved academic achievement in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other southern states doubtless has less to do with the region’s past and more to do with its focus on teaching basic skills. Additionally, progressive forces are said to exert less influence in the south than they do in other areas of the country.

For example, ZeroHedge writes that both Louisiana and Mississippi “are in the bottom quartile in public education spending,” proving yet again that throwing money at education does not necessarily make it better. Perhaps just as important, Louisiana and Mississippi “have relatively weak teachers’ unions that typically oppose the kinds of reforms that are driving up proficiency scores in the two states.”

Conversely, states in the northeast including New York and Massachusetts, as well as other blue states including Michigan, Illinois, and California, all of which have powerful teachers’ unions, are more focused on DEI and other woke measures in the name of achieving equity rather than on reading and math proficiency. They view academic rigor and testing as unfair and racist. Teachers’ unions in California have thus far “prevented lawmakers from passing a law to mandate the science of reading. But a continuing decline in NAEP rankings” may eventually prove to be a “catalyst for change” that is so desperately needed.

The American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy, Rick Hess, told ZeroHedge that southern states “have seized on a political environment that allows them to do the things that matter.... To drive improvement, it’s easier if you have the politics of Mississippi than the politics of Massachusetts.”

Blue states following

Some blue states are jumping on the phonics bandwagon. One example is Maryland, where RealClear Investigations reported last year that Carey Wright, the superintendent who spearheaded the reversal of fortunes in Mississippi, was facilitating a similar turnaround there. RealClear described Wright as “an old-school champion of rigorous standards” who was “pushing back against efforts in other states to boost test scores by essentially lowering their expectations of students.” Surprisingly, one of the states mentioned was Oklahoma, not exactly a bastion of liberalism, and known for its support of traditional academic standards and parents’ rights. (See Education Reporter, November 2024 and August 2023, etc.)

Another example of blue-state turnaround is Colorado. After a decade of effort, “phonics-based curricula” is getting into classrooms there, mimicking Carey Wright’s efforts in Maryland, and progress is being made on “a better accountability system.” ZeroHedge reports that Colorado’s national ranking rose “12 notches to 6th place last year.”

Wright told ZeroHedge that states “are mirroring a lot of the things that we did in Mississippi because it’s been successful. We used approaches based on research showing they work and that’s why I feel strongly about what we did.” But in blue states especially, education officials who genuinely seek better student outcomes will have to find ways to bypass the influence of powerful teachers’ unions and politicians that seem determined to maintain the dismal status quo by thwarting any meaningful improvement.

Experts say the next area for reform is likely to be in lifting math achievement. If Louisiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other states in the region continue on the successful course they have set for reading, the south may indeed rise again. Observers hope these states will lead the rest of the country in establishing a new and more positive pathway for American education.

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