The Mississippi Reading Model

The Mississippi Reading Model | (News and Research 342)

Mississippi Is Offering Lessons for America on Education | Nicholas Kristof

Mississippi has a long track record of educational failure. But a major reform initiative now has children showing significant progress in school. It offers lessons on education. Not just for America. But for the world. It is an example of evidence-based policy. It shows how focus on early reading with the right support to teachers can work. The Mississippi reading model continues to shine: Mississippi’s model for improving early literacy has been a standout since 2019, based on its nation-leading achievement growth on the fourth-grade NAEP reading test. Kymyona Burk, the former Mississippi State Literacy Director (now with ExcelinEd), spoke with Nicholas Kristof (New York Times) on Amanpour&Co. The Effect of Retention Under Mississippi’s Test-Based Promotion Policy | Kirsten Slungaard Mumma, Marcus A. Winters | Using literacy-focused retention policies has shown significant progress: in sixth grade, three years after the intervention, retained students outperform similar students by 1.2 standard deviations [Summary]. Resources: Barksdale Reading Institute; Barksdale Reading Institute Resources

Quality education requires greater and more efficient financing | Mamta Murthi | Learning poverty has reached unacceptable levels in many developing countries. Even though enrollment is often high—at least in the lower grades—the quality of education is poor. This is often because of inadequate education financing: countries are either spending too little, the spending is inefficient, or a combination of both.

World’s Best School Prizes | The World’s Best School Prize celebrates the extraordinary achievements of schools around the globe that are making a real difference to their students, community, and society.

Rising to the challenge: Protecting refugee children’s education amid fragility, conflict and violence | Raja Bentaouet Kattan, Maria Eugenia Oviedo | The global surge in fragility, conflict and violence (FCV) is destroying access to education for millions of refugee children worldwide. Of the 13.7 million children who are refugees or asylum-seekers—displaced from their homes by crises and violence—almost half are out of school. And child displacement is spreading fast. The global number of child refugees more than doubled from 2005 to 2021 and grew by 132 percent between 2010 and 2021 alone.

What Can We Learn from Pre-Primary Quality Assurance Systems? Evidence from the Arab Republic of Egypt | Krafft, Nikaein, Raikes, Mojgani | Quality assurance systems have been implemented or are under development in a number of low- and middle-income countries in an effort to observe the quality of education and deploy targeted measures to improve quality. This paper shares lessons learned on the potential ability of quality assurance systems to observe quality and inform action, drawing on data from a pre-primary quality assurance system in the Arab Republic of Egypt.

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ECA Talk Returns to Education Turns 50 on March 29, 2023, Event Replay. Watch the discussion from earlier this week reassessing progress made on measuring the benefits of education 50 years after the publication of George Psacharopoulos’ pivotal study Returns to Education. Timestamps for remarks and panel discussions during the event replay are marked under the Agenda tab.

Submit a Manuscript to the Journal Education Economics for a Special Issue on the 50th Anniversary of the Returns to Education: An International Comparison | Manuscript deadline: 31 October 2023 | Special Issue Editor: Harry Patrinos, World Bank | Submit An Article | This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book, Returns to Education: An International Comparison, by George Psacharopoulos (assisted by Keith Hinchliffe). Education Economics is publishing a special issue to mark this occasion and the contributions of Professor Psacharopoulos. The focus of this special issue is research on the returns to education. Research on international comparisons and /or  returns to education in less developed economies are especially welcome.