The Mississippi Miracle Doesn't Scale; Building Implementation Capacity Does

Why the same reformers who failed with Common Core will fail again

Mississippi’s education reforms succeeded where Common Core rollout failed. The difference? I would guess that Mississippi owned its reforms, and they made sure they got implemented.

Now watch as the same factions that brought us Common Core prepare to bring their special touch, and the historical results we all know and love, to help “spread” the Miracle.

The Familiar Pattern

American education reform follows a predictable cycle: Local success story emerges. National media celebrates. Foundations fund “replication” (they call it replication, but somehow it never is). Congress mandates. Implementation fails. Parents wonder why Johnny can’t read. Reformers blame students and teachers. Repeat.

The Texas Miracle became No Child Left Behind. By 2011, Texas ranked 49th in verbal SAT scores. Common Core promised rigorous standards and delivered no measurable improvement while costing states an estimated $15.8 billion, but hey, at least the consulting fees were good. Now Mississippi rises from 49th to 9th in fourth-grade reading, and Alabama jumps from last to 32nd in fourth-grade math.

What many breathless accounts don’t mention, and something

Freddie deBoer

carefully inventoried, is the graveyard of previous miracles: KIPP’s 40% Black student attrition, Harlem Children’s Zone expelling an entire class for being “too weak to found a high school on,” DC charters expelling at 72x the rate of public schools, Bruce Randolph School’s 14% math proficiency after Obama’s 2011 praise, Pickett Middle’s “70% proficiency” collapsing to below district average.

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What We Know What Mississippi and Alabama Did

Mississippi didn’t adopt a miracle curriculum. Starting in 2013, they built comprehensive support systems over a decade:

• Mandatory teacher training in evidence-based reading instruction, not one-off workshops but sustained professional development

• Literacy coaches in schools providing ongoing support

• Individual reading plans tracking each struggling student

• Third-grade retention with extensive intervention

I would love to point out, that Mississippi isn’t the only one to achieve interesting results. The Alabama’s 2022 Numeracy Act invested $114 million annually in systematic support:

• One math coach per 500 students

• 60 minutes daily of focused instruction

• Summer camps for struggling students.

• Abandons Common Core for Math

Both states succeeded through sustained investment in improving systems and better resource allocation.

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The Mississippi Mystery

Kelsey Piper

simplifies it to “Select really excellent, high-quality curricula and aggressively teach teachers how to use those curricula instead of putting them through generic “skills” training that won’t impact their classroom practices much. Measure how well students, schools, and districts are doing and hold back kids who aren’t reading at the end of third grade.”

Here’s the problem with that analysis: Mississippi wasn’t the only state to implement phonics-based reading instruction, hold back students, train teachers etc. On a more robust analysis Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum notes, other states adopted sixteen of ExcelinEd’s recommendations including science of reading training, retention policies, and parts that Piper seem to over look like literacy coaches, yet saw gains of only four to five points compared to Mississippi’s ten-point jump. Bear in mind, states should try to achieve all of ExcelinEd’s (a bit broad) recommendations as fast as they can. It’s that rather than, a very simplified stance that Piper presents, find out what is the best way to implement and be willing to take a piecemeal approach if it speeds up the process. It’s just that implementation is a bit more *difficult* than being sold.

The gains began in 2013, but the retention mandate didn’t apply until 2015. Mississippi also saw similar jumps in math, suggesting something beyond the reading law alone. Rachel Canter of Mississippi First hypothesizes it was the state’s focus on “aligning its standards, testing, and accountability system, and sticking with it for many years.” In other words, sustained implementation of multiple aligned reforms, not any single policy.

We still don’t fully understand why Mississippi outperformed other states with identical policies on paper. Was it the particular mix of leaders? The specific sequence of reforms? The state’s starting point? This uncertainty is itself instructive: implementation quality matters, and implementation quality is difficult to codify in policy checklists. It is the biggest X factor whenever a project succeeds or fails if everyone follows the same checklists.

I mean implementation isn’t just following a checklist. Who is going to train the teachers, will the teachers be paid or fired, How are you going to keep track, and thousands of little details, that adds up. Details that states like California haven’t been so good at, or even other red states like Oklahoma. One thing that might explains it is that southern states are close to each other, which makes it easier to cross pollinate leadership, staff and implementation methods with each other. It would explain part of the reason why implementing Mississippi reading and Alabama math programs might work. Maryland is putting that theory to the test by hiring Carey Wright, the former State Superintendent of Education for Mississippi and the leader responsible for the Miracle, to be its new State Superintendent of Schools

(on a personal note, it is great seeing people succeeding upwards, not just failing upwards)

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Beyond Test Scores: Schools as Community Infrastructure

Not to mention, focusing solely on test scores misses what fellow Substacker

Lisa Sibbett

identifies as schools’ deeper function: community infrastructure that shapes entire neighborhoods.

Schools host voting, provide childcare that enables employment, create networks where parents organize everything from little league to local politics. When districts made rapid, disruptive changes to teaching forces in the past, they didn’t just affect test scores, those changes affected the parents, the extended family, and the broader community. When charter networks expelled high percentages of struggling students, they didn’t just manipulate graduation rates, the charter schools created a period of uncertainty and disconnection as they remove families’ childcare, networks, and etc etc despite promising to be a better school.

This doesn’t mean test scores don’t matter. It means that sustainable improvement requires attention to schools’ multiple roles in community life.

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Implementation Capacity vs. Policy Design

Many analyses of Mississippi’s success emphasize accountability measures like third-grade retention. But as education reporter Chad Aldeman noted, what matters isn’t the retention itself but how the policy changes adult behavior, forcing schools to “pull out all the stops” with assessment protocols, targeted tutoring, and intensive support.

“Accountability” measures grab headlines. Implementation capacity does the actual work. Mississippi succeeded because they spent a decade building infrastructure to ensure kids wouldn’t need to be held back. The literacy coaches, the sustained training, the individual reading plans: these are support systems, not “accountability” mechanisms. The goal is to get the kid to read, not punish them for not being able to read.

This distinction matters. Accountability without capacity is just blame-shifting. You can’t test your way to excellence any more than you can weigh yourself thin, though that won’t stop people from trying. Edward Deming taught that 94% of problems stem from systems, not individual choices. Making punishment or fear the driver of metrics leads to declining quality, whether in industry (consider Jack Welch’s legacy or Boeing’s recent failures) or education (the documented scandals where “choose excellence” reforms became choose-to-exclude-struggling-students operations).

Freddie deBoer again understood a basic concept of quality management that miracle-mongers miss: you can’t “accountability” your way to systemic improvement. DeBoer documented how every ‘choose excellence’ reform became a choose-to-exclude-struggling-students scandal. That variation is still an active force in the world. So far the evidence points to Mississippi and Alabama as exceptions to this trend, and if so it’s because of their ability to implement, considering other states have, on paper, met the same checkmarks but still didn’t achieve the same results.

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Why Standardization Often Fails

America operates through 14,000 school districts across 50 state systems, with god knows how many school board members, superintendents, and principals. In operations research and quality management, we repeatedly see the principle that systems need internal flexibility to match external complexity.

Mississippi’s relatively homogeneous, politically stable environment enabled sustained focus. California’s diverse, dynamic context requires different approaches. Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee share certain characteristics that may not apply elsewhere. One size cannot fit all, though that’s never stopped reformers from trying.

The reformers pushing standardization often miss that Mississippi succeeded precisely because it was Mississippi doing it for Mississippi. They had stable political leadership, community buy-in, and sustained commitment. These conditions cannot be mandated from above, you gotta cultivate them locally. But that’s harder work than buying a curriculum package.

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The Department of Defense Exception

Ironically, the highest-performing schools in America are the Department of Defense’s school system, demonstrating exactly why local system-building works. With 66,000 students, Pentagon schools outscored every state in math and reading. Black and Hispanic eighth-graders in DoD schools outperform white students nationally.

How? Through precisely what Mississippi and Alabama are doing: building comprehensive support systems. The New York Times reports that DoD teachers earn $88,000 versus $31,900 in some states (crazy right?). They have 10-15 years average experience. Supply closets are stocked. When DoD schools implemented their own Common Core-like standards in 2015, they took six years for methodical rollout with sustained training and support, not the rushed, underfunded implementation many states experienced.

DoD succeeds because it controls its entire system and can ensure adequate resources. As one DoD principal explained, the goal isn’t “pockets of excellence” but raising the floor for all students through systematic improvement.

Notably, I haven’t seen too many pundits talking about replicating DoD’s success. Wonder why? Perhaps because reformers want Mississippi’s test scores without Mississippi’s patience or DoD’s resources. Notice what they never propose: giving every school DoD-level funding, teacher salaries, and support staff.

There’s another wrinkle: Freddie deBoer would argue that the DoD has way more control over the context, like living arrangements and being their parents’ employers, than public schools. Fair enough, but considering how DoD schools seem to outperform most other states and considering military families are often at the lower end of the income spectrum, they are doing that 10% really really well.

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The Singapore Paradox

Singapore succeeds through strong central planning impossible in our federal system. Singapore can mandate curriculum changes for its 360 schools overnight. Yet even in America, when districts try to implement Singapore Math, success depends entirely on implementation quality.

Research shows Singapore Math can produce positive impacts (effect sizes of 0.11-0.15 standard deviations) but only with substantial implementation investment. Districts that purchased textbooks without teacher training saw little improvement. Success requires multi-year professional development programs, deep understanding of methodology, administrative support, and assessment alignment.

In other words, Singapore Math works when districts build capacity to implement it properly, exactly what Mississippi did with reading instruction. The curriculum matters less than the system supporting it.

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Potential Limitations

We should acknowledge some complications. In 2015, Mississippi aligned its state test more closely with NAEP. As testing expert Andrew Ho notes, “To the extent you prioritize NAEP, you risk inflating NAEP scores.” This isn’t necessarily gaming the system, but it adds nuance. The timing doesn’t fully explain the gains (which began in 2013), but it’s part of the picture.

Additionally, Mississippi’s gains could stall. Eighth-grade scores already show concerning patterns. New leadership could abandon literacy coaches. Budget cuts could eliminate support systems. This fragility isn’t a flaw in Mississippi’s approach: it’s inherent to continuous improvement. Quality requires constant attention, ongoing investment, and renewed commitment.

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Building Capacity, Not Mandates

The path forward isn’t standardizing Mississippi’s approach but understanding why Mississippi succeeded where Common Core failed: local ownership, sustained implementation, and systematic support.

For education leaders genuinely committed to improvement, Mississippi proves you can succeed, but only with sustained community support, adequate resources, and critically, time.

States and localities need:

Implementation infrastructure: Not curriculum mandates but support for building local capacity: training programs, coaching systems, professional development.

Documentation without prescription: Share what worked without mandating rigid methods. Provide frameworks that allow local adaptation. (something we been working on personally with Textbook)

Sustained commitment: Recognition that real improvement takes years, often longer than election cycles. This requires political courage and community patience.

Resource adequacy: Mississippi and Alabama invested significantly in their successful programs. DoD schools spend generously. Improvement isn’t free.

The federal role should focus on providing resources and documenting successes, not mandating methods. Foundations should fund implementation capacity, not develop the next universal curriculum. States should focus on building support systems, not adopting the latest program.

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The Difficult Question: What About Resistance?

This raises an uncomfortable question: What do we do about districts that refuse to build capacity?

There’s a crucial difference between implementations that fail despite genuine effort and leadership that refuses to implement improvements at all. Mississippi had leaders willing to stay the course for a decade. Some districts have leaders who won’t even acknowledge the need for improvement.

The former deserve support, resources, and patience. The latter require different interventions—potentially state oversight, leadership changes, or in extreme cases, restructuring. This is different from imposing standardized solutions; it’s addressing genuine failures of will or capacity.

We need clearer distinctions between:

• Places struggling to implement (need support)

• Places implementing the wrong things (need better information and flexibility to adapt)

• Places refusing to try (need leadership accountability)

Each requires different responses, and conflating them leads to both over-intervention and under-support.

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The Real Goal: Schools Worth Attending

The goal shouldn’t be marginally boosting NAEP scores while crushing the joy of learning. We need schools that instill curiosity, build community, and prepare students for lives worth living, not just tests worth passing.

Schools aren’t test-score factories; they’re community infrastructure. They provide childcare that enables parents to work, create networks that strengthen civic life, offer gathering spaces for everything from voting to vaccination clinics. Schools determine whether neighborhoods get investment or abandonment, whether local businesses survive or shutter, whether communities have organizational capacity.

Mississippi and Alabama are building better schools for their communities: institutions where teachers are trained, students are challenged, and parents are welcomed. They’re creating educational institutions that serve their actual purpose: developing capable, curious human beings who can engage with complex ideas.

Maybe Freddie deBoer is right that, besides air quality and other environmental factors, there is a limit on what schools can do to improve relative test scores? So what! When talking about education, people miss how schools function as community institutions. School shutdowns didn’t just hurt students during COVID, but parents and the broader community. The goal is better schools and better integration with communities because it is a valuable thing to have.

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The Choice Ahead

We can continue the cycle of miraculous discovery, standardization, failure, and abandonment that has characterized American education reform for forty years. Or we can do the harder work of building capacity: supporting local and state officials, investing in implementation infrastructure, and accepting that improvement happens through patient system-building, not revolutionary mandates.

This requires holding three things we know at time of writing:

First, Mississippi’s gains are real and matter with the current verification we have. When fourth-graders learn to read proficiently, that’s genuine progress worth celebrating and understanding. People on all sides of the debate keep forgetting that test scores and grading are useful as diagnostic tools.

Second, schools serve multiple functions beyond academic metrics. They provide community infrastructure, enable parental employment through childcare, create civic networks, and shape neighborhood vitality. Sustainable improvement requires attention to these roles, not just NAEP scores.

Third, there are structural limits to what schools alone can achieve. Freddie deBoer is maybe right that schools control perhaps 10% of variance in student outcomes, with socioeconomic factors driving most achievement gaps. I hold the stance that schools have more of an impaction, but even then with Freddie’s argument that this doesn’t mean schools can’t improve in the absolute sense, Mississippi proves they can, but it means we shouldn’t expect schools to single-handedly solve poverty-driven inequality. Especially considering we have high scoring Purdue students who can’t get a job at Chipotle. Before you go, blue collar jobs on me, manufacturing and blue collar jobs are also dying out, soooooooooooooo yeeeeeaaaaaah.

We can build better schools. We can improve reading instruction, math proficiency, and school climate (concrete, achievable, absolute goals). What we cannot do is replicate success through top-down mandates, expect identical results from different contexts, or close all achievement gaps through pedagogy alone. We should encourage the spread of what works, and we need to ramp up implementation capacity if we want the results. It’s not an either or, but a *very* difficult political and management problem. It’s made even worse, because a lot of false *miracles* that waste people’s time over and over.

The choice matters because it determines whether the next generation gets schools that work as schools and instill the joy of learning and reading - institutions that develop capable students, strengthen communities, and operate with adequate resources - or simply another cycle of disappointed promises chasing miraculous transformation that school systems were never designed to deliver.

On that note, We have a delightful little online handbook taking a look at all sorts of success cases if people are interested.

If you are wondering where to start with the idea of improving implementation ability, I would recommend reading the works to W. Edward Demings. I heard he did some good stuff with teaching basics of implementation and quality management and what not, just ask Japan.

To the pundits, foundations and consultants already packaging Mississippi’s ‘playbook’: You failed with Common Core, No Child Left Behind, etc etc for these exact reasons. Learn or get out of the way.