In 2013, Mississippi passed a comprehensive early literacy policy aimed at ensuring that students can read proficiently by the end of third grade, which research shows is a make-or-break benchmark. Among the reforms is a retention policy that—much like Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, which was passed around the same time—requires students who don’t reach a minimum score threshold on state standardized tests to be retained in the third grade and receive additional support and intervention.
A recently published working paper from the Wheelock Educational Policy Center at Boston University offers a closer look at the effects of Mississippi’s test-based promotion policy. Using a regression discontinuity design, Kirsten Slungaard Mumma and Marcus Winters were able to compare the test scores, absences, and special education status of roughly 4,700 students who scored slightly above and below the state’s promotional score threshold. They found that students who were held back via the retention policy scored more than 1 standard deviation higher relative to their barely promoted peers by the end of sixth grade. That’s an enormous effect. It means that students who were retained in third grade scored, on average, around the 62nd percentile in English language arts when they were in sixth grade, compared to students who weren’t held back and scored on average in the 20th percentile. The impact was driven by gains for Black and Hispanic students, as both benefited substantially in ELA if they were retained. Retention had no significant impact on math scores, a student’s subsequent attendance rate, or the likelihood that they would later be classified as having a disability.
This isn’t the only evidence that Mississippi’s early literacy reforms are working. The Magnolia State has registered remarkable academic progress over the last decade, most notably on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The state has shown significant gains in fourth grade reading since 2011, and from 2011 to 2022, ranked first among states in fourth grade reading gains. State test scores have also steadily improved, and across-the-board progress has been so impressive that it’s been hailed as a “learning miracle.”
What might Ohio observers take away from this data? First and foremost, it should give opponents of Ohio’s retention policy pause. Mississippi’s NAEP results, along with this new report and plenty of other research, make it crystal clear that a strong retention policy should be an important part of any statewide early literacy strategy.
Mississippi is also proof that statewide reading initiatives can be highly effective when they include resources and interventions beyond just retention. Mississippi leaders focused on the “right way” to teach reading, which meant championing the science of reading and ensuring that teachers knew what to teach and how to teach it. Literacy coaches were provided to identified schools and offered varying levels of support. Students who demonstrate a “substantial deficiency in reading” are required by law to receive intensive reading instruction and intervention, which must be documented in a reading plan. In other words, state leaders didn’t just toss out platitudes about the importance of improving early literacy. They passed laws, invested funding, and implemented programs designed to spark improvement—even in the face of significant pushback.
Ohio has already started down this path. The Third Grade Reading Guarantee requires struggling readers to be identified as early as kindergarten and put on reading improvement plans. The parents of struggling readers must be notified when their children are deemed off-track. And, of course, students who don’t meet the state’s promotional standard are retained in the third grade and must receive intensive intervention. Prior to the pandemic, these collective efforts were moving the achievement needle. But these improvements, at least on national assessments, haven’t been as swift or as stark as those in Mississippi. In the wake of Covid learning loss, it’s clear that Ohio’s youngest students need more.
Fortunately, Governor DeWine proposed some big changes aimed at bolstering early literacy in his recently released budget recommendations. They include establishing a state-created list of high-quality curriculum and instructional materials aligned with the science of reading, and requiring all public schools to use only the materials that appear on the list starting with the 2024–25 school year. He’s also pledged to provide funding to every school to pay for curriculum based on the science of reading and to fund coaches that can provide intensive support in low-performing schools.
In education policy, the best path forward isn’t always clear. But when it comes to early literacy, there’s plenty of light shining the way. We have a trove of research and evidence indicating what works, and thanks to states like Mississippi, we have a model for how to make it work. Now all Ohio needs to do is follow the light.
