[kogus]

The article suggests that someone from Maine would be reluctant to ask Mississippi for advice, given the stereotypes and biases that all Americans have absorbed over the years.

If the Maine Secretary of Education overcame his or her reluctance and did in fact ask Mississippi for advice, imagine their disappointment if the response was "we actually teach math".

Do you have a source for your response? I'm genuinely curious about what they changed to achieve this level of success. I'd be interested first for the actual educational methods, and secondarily I'd be interested in relating it to the idea of organizational changes that can produce relatively rapid reversals of a long term trend.

[ch4s3]

You can read a bit about it here [1]. They structure reading around 5 pillars, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension which is an evidence based approach[2]. Then if by the end of 3rd grade a student isn't reading at grade level they hold the student back to give them more time to learn to read so that they will be prepared for the more advanced material in 4th grade. I don't know as much about the math instruction.

[1] https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/mississippi-student...

[2] https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/a-full-breakdown-of-the-s...

[leereeves]

> imagine their disappointment if the response was "we actually teach math"

And yet, looking at the chart in the article, that appears to be pretty much all there is to say.

Judging by results (based on the limited evidence in the article) Mississippi doesn't seem to be doing anything revolutionary. Their scores today are still significantly worse than Maine was in 2013.

The question we should be asking is "What is Maine doing wrong?" What caused their scores to decline precipitously since 2013?

[mcphage]

> And yet, looking at the chart in the article, that appears to be pretty much all there is to say.

The problem is, the Maine Secretary of Education would then reply “We actually teach math, also.”

[leereeves]

Not nearly so well as they as they used to. What's changed?

[Izkata]

This is a straight up guess, but the timing is really close: adoption of Common Core?

What I've seen of Common Core math is very different from how it's traditionally taught, to the point that parents don't understand it. I think I can see a thread in there, that it's attempting to teach what those of us good at math end up figuring out ourselves with numbers, but the examples online are bad and lead to further misunderstandings. So I could see teachers having similar issues, and students not learning very well because of it.

To put it in more techy terms, Common Core math is like learning computer science before learning your first programming language: probably possible, but it won't work well for most people.

[mcphage]

I'm not sure what the Common Core curriculum for reading is, although on the whole Common Core math curriculum, it's a good system. You're right that often parents don't understand that—but that's due to Americans on the whole being uncomfortable and unskilled in mathematics. It does require teacher education, however, and lots of places are cutting that back.