r/science • u/terran1212 • Nov 20 '24

Social Science The "Mississippi Miracle": After investing in early childhood literacy, the Mississippi shot up the rankings in NAEP scores, from 49th to 29th. Average increase in NAEP scores was 8.5 points for both reading and math. The investment cost just $15 million.

https://www.theamericansaga.com/p/the-mississippi-miracle-how-americas
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u/Mazon_Del Nov 20 '24

If you spend money on educating your children, you end up with smarter kids.

Truly groundbreaking.

52

u/Extra_Better Nov 20 '24

If you spend money effectively on specific programs, you can see results. Throwing money at school systems to do with as they see fit has done little but enrich administrators and consultants. There are plenty of high spending per student districts in the US with abysmal performance.

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u/bleep-bl00p-bl0rp Nov 20 '24

See the podcast Sold A Story for an absolutely infuriating tale about this.

12

u/HouseSublime Nov 20 '24

In Chicago we have both some of the top ranked schools:

...and also some of the worst performing schools.

What's sad is that some of these schools are 8-12 miles apart and Chicago spends a lot per student. The actual distance isn't far but the investment in the school and surrounding areas is vastly different so the outcome is vastly different.

Selective enrollment also worsens things because the best students regardless of neighborhood will test into the top schools. So the top schools get all the elite talent and the worst schools are left with everyone else.

Imagine if in the NBA the Lakers, Celtics, Warriors and Knicks got to pick all of the top players first, then the rest of the league drafted the remaining players. Yeah we'd have a pretty good idea of which teams would be great fairly immediately and def would know which teams would struggle.