Thank Goodness for Mississippi (and Louisiana)

States like New Jersey can copy their playbook for educational improvements

In the New Jersey governor’s race, Democrat Mikie Sherrill is facing off against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. In their debate last week, Ciattarelli apparently highlighted the “Southern Surge” states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama, which have seen some of the more impressive academic outcomes in the last 5-10 years.

Sherrill didn’t appreciate the comparison and said this:

He keeps citing places like Louisiana and Mississippi, I think some of the worst schools in the entire nation. If that’s where he wants to drive us to, I think voters should be aware of that.

Ironically, Sherrill went on to talk about the importance of high-quality tutoring as a learning loss strategy and using phonics to boost 3rd grade reading scores. I applaud Sherrill for highlighting those, but, as Karen Vaites commented wryly on Twitter, “who wants to tell her?” It’s funny/ not funny that Sherrill is highlighting some of the same strategies used to great effect by the states she started off by bashing.

See full clip via Karen Vaites

But I want to double back on Sherrill’s casual slams on Mississippi and Louisiana. Do they have some of the “worst schools” in the nation, as Sherrill claimed? And by implication, is New Jersey doing better than these states? The answer to both of those questions is no.

Sherrill’s confusion may stem from the fact that New Jersey does have pretty high student achievement scores, but this could be largely because New Jersey is a relatively wealthy state that spends a lot of money on its schools. Does that mean its schools are good? What value are the schools adding?

For example, here are the raw, unadjusted 4th grade math scores for these three states:

New Jersey: 240

Mississippi: 239

Louisiana: 235

New Jersey gets the slight nod here. It may not be as much of an advantage as old historical prejudices would lead you to believe, but it is still beating these Southern states. Go New Jersey!

But wait. Let’s start to break those down a bit. What are the 4th grade math scores for non-poor kids?

Mississippi: 256

Louisiana: 254

New Jersey: 254

Huh. That’s weird. New Jersey’s non-poor students are slightly underperforming those in Mississippi and Louisiana. What about low-income kids?

Mississippi: 234

Louisiana: 228

New Jersey: 222

Wow. In 2024, New Jersey’s poor kids scored 6 points lower in math than poor kids did in Louisiana and 12 points lower than in Mississippi. That should tell you something about which of these states has better schools.

I started with just one subject, one grade, and one student category (income), but the Urban Institute has taken this one step further. They factored in all the measurable forms of advantage and disadvantage to try to calculate “adjusted” scores by state. As you might anticipate by now, New Jersey looks much better on its raw scores than it does after you control for its advantages. Across 4th and 8th grade math and reading, New Jersey’s raw scores are higher than those in Mississippi and Louisiana, but once you dig in, those advantages start to disappear.

Remember the raw 4th grade math scores? They looked like this:

New Jersey: 240

Mississippi: 239

Louisiana: 235

But once adjust them for the state’s demographics, here’s what they look like:

Mississippi: 249

Louisiana: 245

New Jersey: 235

A slight advantage turns into a big disadvantage once you look under the hood. In fact, this same pattern appears in all the tested grades and subjects. New Jersey looks good on the unadjusted scores. Here are the raw 8th grade reading scores:

New Jersey: 266

Louisiana: 257

Mississippi: 254

And here’s where things stand after the demographic adjustment:

Louisiana: 265

Mississippi: 263

New Jersey: 259

Oh, and how much money does each state spend to get their results? According to the NEA, New Jersey spent $24,831 per student in 2023-24 while Louisiana spent $17,541 and Mississippi spent just $12,490.

In other words, I think Mississippi and Louisiana have a strong case to be made that their schools are performing considerably better than New Jersey’s are at a much lower cost. Organizations like WakeUpCallNJ are trying to help more people in the Garden State understand these dynamics.

Back in the old days some state leaders used to privately say, “thank goodness for Mississippi” because it could always be counted on to be worse. It was a punching bag. But that’s no longer the case, and Northern politicians like Sherrill need to update their talking points. Now we should be saying, “thank goodness for Mississippi (and Louisiana)” because they point the way to better outcomes for kids.

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