Let’s talk about all time greatest losers becoming winners and I’m not talking about the University of Indiana football team. I am referring to fourth grade reading scores in the state of Mississippi. Once laughed at as either 49th or 50th in this category, it is now number 9. This is a state that traditionally underfunded education and most of its public schools are heavily minority with the majority of white students going to private schools.
This did not occur overnight as educators refer to it as the Mississippi Marathon rather than a miracle and it is built around a simple principle, reading is the most important part of education and if you can read, everything else can be learned. It also moved back to the basics of reading is phonics rather than all the modern techniques of pictures, context clues and sentence interpretation. Phonics is based on words by sounding them out and interpreting their meaning. The state spends money on further educating their teachers on how to deliver the basics of reading to their students. They also take the approach that a student will be held back until they learn to read and pass reading tests.
In Texas, our politicians have taken the view that public schools can’t deliver the education needed for the future and are beginning to shift resources to private schools in the form of vouchers. This faintly recalls the old segregationist South that believed in separate but equal education facilities. However, equal was in the eye of the beholder.
