Reading Scores Plummet in Rich Blue States and Rise in Poor Red Ones

Helen Raleigh : May 1, 2025
The Federalist

[TheFederalist.com] The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has released the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 2024 school year. Known as the "Nation's Report Card," NAEP assesses the reading and math skills of America's fourth and eighth graders. The latest report reveals something surprising: after adjusting for demographics, the reading and math scores of students in Mississippi and Louisiana, two heavily Republican states and among the poorest in the nation, have surpassed those in deeply Democratic states such as California and New York. The secret of Mississippi and Louisiana's educational success is not secret at all; it is about returning to the fundamentals and following the evidence. Mississippi's Republican-led legislature has implemented effective education reforms in 2012 that prioritize phonics—teaching students to sound out words—and enforce a retention policy for third graders who do not meet essential reading benchmarks... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here Click Here to read. (Image Credit: US Dept of Education-Flickr /CC BY 2.0)