By Thomas Ultican 3/21/2025
The national assessment of education progress (NAEP) is a biennial effort of the Department of Education. At the end of February, Chad Aldeman of The 74 – a billionaire created propaganda rag – asks, “How did Mississippi go from 49th in the country a decade ago to near the top today?” The simple answer is they didn’t. Still Aldeman’s article carries the title, “There Really Was a ‘Mississippi Miracle’ in Reading. States Should Learn From It.”
Australian, Noel Wilson, published his dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” in 1997. This work, which has never been refuted, says that error in standardized testing is too large to reliably compare student outcomes. Psychologist Donald Campbell observed, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” This is known as Campbell’s Law. Together, these two seminal works tell us that standardized testing to monitor and evaluate education is both unreliable and bad policy.
I have finally found something positive coming out of our felonious president’s administration. ABC News reports that he has ended the agency that compiles the “Nation’s Report Card” also known as NAEP. He eliminated the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which had existed for more than 150 years. Now, we won’t know how many students or schools our nation has or other important data about them, but we will no longer be wasting money on standardized testing.
This may be the last time we get a chance to look at billionaire sponsored deceptions based on NAEP testing.
Not a Miracle
Aldeman states:
“… [W]hen the Urban Institute adjusted NAEP scores based on each state’s demographics, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading scores came out on top.”
“Some people have even tried to cast doubt on Mississippi’s NAEP gains by arguing they’re merely a function of testing older kids. But this has been debunked: Mississippi does hold back more kids than other states, but it always has, and the average age of Mississippi’s NAEP test-takers has barely budged over time.”
The Urban Institute and every other report that shows reading scores surging in Mississippi are based on 4th grade NAEP scores. It is remarkable how well Mississippi fourth graders have performed on NAEP reading tests since 2013. In 2024, they moved all the way up to 10th in comparison to the 49 other states, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and Puerto Rico.
The first link in the second paragraph quoted above is a post by Diane Ravitch. She did not say anything about student ages but did state, “The surest path to success in fourth-grade reading on NAEP is to hold back third-graders who did not pass the third-grade reading test.” She also linked to a post from the right-wing Fordham Institute which posits, “A partial explanation for its NAEP improvement is that it holds students back.”
The second link in the paragraph is from a Fordham Institute article refuting Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times. Fordham asserts, “His claims about Mississippi’s NAEP scores and retention policy are based on a debunked theory and are demonstrably wrong in ways that he should have known.” This latest link is to a Magnolia Times article by Carey Wright, who as secretary of education in Mississippi instituted its reading program including third grade retention. Ms. Wright has too much skin in the game to be a powerful source that “demonstrably” sets the LA opinion writer straight.
If Mississippi’s reading program is really working not just 4th graders but 8th graders should also be showing gains. They do not. NCES publishes comparison lists of state results.
Using the 2024 data, we see that indeed Mississippi’s 4th graders were number ten in the country but why are their 8th graders still number 43? The Mississippi reading program has been in effect since 2013 which means the 8th graders have been subjected to it their entire school life.
Another way to look at this is by plotting Mississippi reading scores against national averages.
This data shows us there is something fishy about the Mississippi’s 4th grade reading scores. They are hardly miracles but seem more like subterfuges.
It does not conclusively prove anything but science of reading, which is employed by Mississippi, started to be widely implemented in 2013 at the same time national reading scores started getting worse.
Carey Wright and the Right-wing
Carey Wright began her education career in 1972 as a teacher in Maryland.
In 2010, Michelle Rhee hired her to be chief academic officer for Washington DC public schools. Wright was an administrator in the DC schools during the height of their cheating scandals. Besides working with some of the most callus and harmful education leaders in American history, she is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and a graduate of the late Eli Broad’s superintendent training academy. Both organizations are or were widely seen as enemies of public education.
In a 2023 Magnolia Times article, Wright claimed:
“Students who are retained in third grade because of reading deficiencies are provided with intensive interventions and support throughout the school year so they will be successful in later grades.
“A recent report from Boston University’s Wheelock Educational Policy Center found this strategy is working. The report reviewed English Language Arts scores and later academic outcomes from the first cohort of third graders promoted and retained under Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act of 2013.”
Upon opening the link Wright provided, we discover that the cited report was commissioned by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which is Jeb Bush’s non-profit. He is chairman of the board and his girl Friday, Patricia Levesque, is the CEO. Their organization is known for working to privatize public schools and promoting Edtech.
Evidently ExcelinEd’s researchers discovered that the 6th grade results do not look as bad as the 8th grade results. The reports first key finding states, “For students who were in the third grade in 2014-15, being retained under Mississippi’s policy led to substantially higher ELA scores in the sixth grade.” This appears to be an example of looking for data to sell your ideology.
After spending four years in the classroom, Wright transitioned to various administrative roles. When leading special education services in Montgomery County during the early 2000s, she was serving in the middle of a corporate education reform triumvirate. John Deasy was promoting charter schools and teacher “pay for performance” in Prince George County. Baltimore had Andres Alonzo firing teachers and closing schools. Just a few miles away, Michelle Rhee was promising to “fix” Washington DC’s schools by firing teachers and principals.
Unfortunately, Carey Wright was drawn into this kind of billionaire school reform. She was probably a talented administrator, but many of her decisions were tainted by her friends in education.
The data does suggest that there has been some education progress in Mississippi. That improvement is most likely due to the dedication of poorly compensated public school educators.
tultican 
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