The “Southern Surge” in Reading: Another Media Manufactured Mirage

By Dr. Paul Thomas

Growing up in the South, I was often warned not to beat a dead horse.

A lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy, however, has made me aware of zombie narratives and that sometimes the dead are the living dead.

In my career of literacy, the phonics gambit is just that—a zombie advocacy that just will not die.

The newest media iteration of the phonics gambit has been christened the “Southern surge” in reading, celebrated again in Chalkbeat: The ‘Southern surge’ offers lessons for student learning — but we don’t fully understand it yet.

This “Southern surge” narrative tends to center Mississippi but also includes Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana (the most recent “miracle” state based on an incomplete or misleading use of NAEP scores).

Like many media manufactured narratives, the “Southern surge” in reading falls apart when the data are carefully examined.

While I give the Chalkbeat article some credit for admitting that the so-called “surge” is not fully understood, Barnum—as Hanford did when christening Mississippi a “miracle” in 2019 (“What’s up in Mississippi? There’s no way to know for sure what causes increases in test scores”)—gives the “surge” narrative nearly complete credibility even with the headline hedge and a couple points made then glossed over (“Eighth grade results have been less impressive for these Southern exemplars, though”).

Here are the (likely fatal) flaws in the “surge” narrative:

• Although Barnum cites an important and comprehensive analysis of reading reform, he fails to acknowledge its most important findings: States adopting reading reform (often popularly associated with Mississippi’s model even when states explicitly do not mimic those reform policies, such as California) has seen short-term test score gains in reading (note that score gains are not necessarily higher reading proficiency); however, while Barnum lists several reading policy components (“third grade retention, phonics-based curriculum, and statewide teacher training”), this study directly states that only retention is associated with higher scores (with the researchers noting their study did not identify why).
• Barnum notes the drop by Southern states’ grade 8 reading scores, but fails to acknowledge that this data point may suggest that retention is inflating scores, not increasing reading proficiency. Notably states such as Florida and Mississippi have had these reform for over one to two decades without the “surge” appearing in grade 8 data.
• The retention component also is troubling since these states continue to retain students as high rates. If the other policies were working, we should expect retention numbers to decrease significantly, but they have not.
• Possibly the most damning ignored data from NAEP, however: Across all states, but including the so-called “surge” states, the race and poverty gaps remain persistent, typically the same as in 1998.

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