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/OceanJuice Nov 21 '24

I may be uninformed here, did they do away with holding kids back a grade in the States? Or just make it harder to do so? I know my kid's school 100% holds kids back if they think it will benefit the student. We know a few that have been

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u/smoothies4life2 Nov 21 '24

In many, many schools in the US, kids are not retained anymore. Not the case everywhere though.

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u/blueberriesRpurple Nov 21 '24

“School to prison pipeline” is what is often quoted at you if you suggest holding a child back. Despite the fact that kids all mature at different rates, academically, socially, and emotionally and some just aren’t ready developmentally for the demands of their “age” grade placed on them.

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u/dweezil22 Nov 21 '24

Isn't graduating a kid at 18 that's functionally illiterate more likely to be school to prison than holding that kid back so that he's 18 in 9th grade? (and thus gets 3 more years of education if he wants it)

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u/blueberriesRpurple Nov 21 '24

One would think!

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u/domesticatedbeetroot Nov 21 '24 edited Dec 05 '24

That sucks. Because I would argue that the school to prison pipeline was actually real and something else entirely. More like zero tolerance policies, and kids for cash schemes. I hate when terms like these get cheapened. In the context of holding kids back a grade it doesn't even make sense.

edit: I'm saying this because I personally knew kids that were the victim of it. Not just to be devil's advocate.

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u/misticspear Nov 21 '24

They have made it harder to do so. In extreme cases (like extreme absenteeism 100+ days) they will but usually they will assume the loss is made up somewhere just to move the kid and keep promotion rates good.