by Toren Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications, Vermont Agency of Education
In 2019, Mississippi 4th graders shocked the nation.
In the fall of that year, the Nation’s Report Card (also known as NAEP) revealed a statistically significant decline in reading proficiency among 4th graders nationwide. Proficiency rates in 49 states either fell or remained steady from 2017 — the first major sign of a nationwide literacy recession that predates the pandemic and persists today. The one exception was the poorest state in America, where 4th graders performed at the national average for the first time since the NAEP reading assessment was introduced in 1992.
I was fortunate to have a front row seat to the so-called “Mississippi Miracle.” After growing up and attending public schools in Vermont, and later teaching in New York City, my career brought me to Jackson, Mississippi two months before the 2019 NAEP results were released. From my vantage point as an education researcher at a local nonprofit, I witnessed firsthand how policymakers, educators, and students themselves transformed Mississippi from a punchline to a pioneer in K-12 education.
The 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA) laid the groundwork for what state leaders prefer to call the “Mississippi Marathon.” The law, not uncontroversially, raised expectations for students, teachers, and educator preparation programs. It also, crucially, provided support in the form of state-funded literacy coaches. But the LBPA is only half the story.
Every state education system has its strengths and weaknesses. Following the LBPA, Mississippi found its strength in high expectations and strong accountability, which powered the state’s literacy gains in spite of a grossly underpaid teacher workforce and a deeply inequitable system of education funding. Months after the celebrated 2019 NAEP results, Covid-19 put Mississippi’s education system to the test and — as in every state — would go on to expose the fault lines simmering under the surface.
Mississippi’s critical teacher shortage accelerated and, as my own research demonstrated, hit lower-performing districts and majority-Black districts particularly hard. In addition to learning loss that was ubiquitous across the nation, the first post-pandemic state assessments in Mississippi revealed achievement gaps that were noticeably higher than pre-pandemic.
Had state leaders stayed the course of emphasizing Mississippi’s strengths (accountability) while ignoring its weaknesses (inequitable funding and a critical teacher shortage), the Mississippi Marathon may well have gone down in history as a fluke, and the LBPA as simply a fair-weather reform.
Instead, Mississippi acknowledged and confronted its challenges head on. In 2022, the Mississippi legislature passed the largest teacher pay raise in state history. In 2024, it passed a foundation formula to direct additional resources to Mississippi’s highest-need communities. Both policy achievements were controversial and hard-fought; both resulted in historic investments for Mississippi students.
I am hesitant to draw a neat causal line between these post-pandemic reforms and Mississippi’s post-pandemic trajectory in literacy. But something is going right: Among the 28 states with comparable pre- and post-pandemic state assessments, Mississippi is one of the only places where ELA proficiency is higher today than it was pre-pandemic. On the latest NAEP exam, Mississippi 4th graders exceeded the national average in reading for the first time — and outperformed their peers in Vermont.
There are limits to the Mississippi Marathon. Despite meaningful policy achievements in recent years, I have argued that Mississippi educators remain underpaid while, relatedly, a critical teacher shortage continues to limit the state’s potential as a national leader in education. But there is a lesson here. And as a state on the opposite trajectory (NAEP scores in Vermont have been trending downward for a decade), it’s worth taking notes on what Mississippi is getting right.
Mississippians transformed their state from a punchline to a pioneer in K-12 education by taking a long hard look in the mirror. Rather than simply leaning into their strengths, Mississippians prioritized coming to grips with the weaknesses of their state education system.
I think Vermonters have begun to do the same.
Just as state leaders in Mississippi came to recognize and act on a series of existential threats to the next generation — including a lack of support and accountability for effective reading instruction, as well as a longstanding failure to equitably and effectively fund public schools — in 2025, the bipartisan coalition that passed Act 73 similarly took the difficult step of acknowledging where and how Vermont has fallen short in serving our young people.
Vermont has a fragmented system of public education that features wide disparities in funding, expectations, and opportunities for the roughly 70,000 students spread across 119 school districts. Per-pupil funding by district ranges from $9,000 to $18,000. Criteria for earning a high school diploma is left up to interpretation by Supervisory Unions and Supervisory Districts. Depending on the town they call home, there is no guarantee that a student can access opportunities like AP courses, world languages, or career and technical education.
For some adults, that fragmentation is a feature not a bug. For others it is a reasonable byproduct of local control. The architects of Act 73 took a different view and bet on a future where Vermonters come together to tackle our challenges collectively.
That future includes establishing statewide graduation requirements that set a universal standard of excellence. It includes enacting a school funding formula that guarantees funding for students based on their unique needs. And, yes, it includes larger school districts that, among other benefits, will allow Vermont to invest in underserved communities and pay teachers more.
Changing course takes courage. When a barrier to student success persists long enough it can become synonymous with tradition, and there is always a constituency for the status quo.
But tradition is a sad consolation prize for a kid on the wrong side of a tilted playing field. Ultimately, that is the theory of action behind the Mississippi Marathon. As a product of Vermont public schools who was lucky enough to have a front row seat to the biggest comeback story in American education, I encourage my fellow Vermonters to take note and prioritize the future of Vermont over our past.
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