What Nebraska Can Learn from the Mississippi Miracle in Education

The “Mississippi Miracle” is catching headlines across states for delivering education success at a low cost. Most recently, the Kansas Policy Institute reviewed Mississippi’s performance results compared to Kansas and found the Sunflower State lagging. 

In a February Platte analysis, we found that Nebraska’s K-12 funding is the third-most reliant on property taxes of all states. Out of every $1 of property taxes paid, roughly 60¢ goes to funding K-12. Nebraska’s heavy reliance on property taxes has contributed to Nebraska having one of the highest property tax burdens in the country. As a result, Nebraska lawmakers spend significant resources – in terms of both state dollars and policy attention – on trimming the property tax burden. 

The “Mississippi Miracle” shows that it is possible to do more with less. Mississippi spent just over $12,000 per pupil in FY 2021, while Nebraska and Kansas each spent over $15,000. Yet over the last 10 years, Mississippi has made strong advancements in education achievement, including these impressive results: 

• 4th-grade reading proficiency (all students) jumped from 21% to 32% in Mississippi (while the national average fell from 35% to 31%). 

• The portion of 4th-graders below basic in Mississippi went from about half to one-third. 

• Mississippi’s four-score composite (4th grade and 8th grade for economically disadvantaged students and those who are not disadvantaged) improved from a #49 ranking to #5. 

Kansas Policy attributes the success not to money but rather to Mississippi’s student-focused approach, starting with Mississippi’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act. This Act deployed literacy coaches to the 50 lowest-performing schools, provided clear communication of literacy deficits with parents, and grade-level hold-backs for students who don’t meet standards.  

The Mississippi Legislature also implemented an A to F grading system for schools in 2013, resulting in each school receiving a grade reflecting performance and improvement on state assessment tests. Teacher bonuses are incentivized by distributing $100 per student to schools that improve a letter grade or maintain an “A.”  

In Kansas as in other states, such reforms are resisted by the education establishment. But any state looking for success should examine the outcomes achieved in Mississippi, along with the inputs required to get there. Transparency and incentive alignment are essential for any large, bureaucratic system to produce positive results.  

Returning to Nebraska’s heavy reliance on property taxes, the headline numbers no longer tell the full story. While Nebraska K-12 schools receive $3 billion from property taxes, roughly $750 million of that is offset by property tax credits. In effect, a quarter of Nebraska’s school property tax burden is offset by state funding for property tax reductions. Whereas Nebraska appropriates roughly $1.15 billion to the state aid formula (TEEOSA), there is effectively an additional $750 million in school property tax offsets. In sum, that brings total state aid to $1.9 billion against $2.25 billion in property taxes (after a $750 million deduction). This comes out to a much more reasonable split of 46% state aid to 54% property tax reliance, which would rank Nebraska as 17th-most reliant on property taxes. 

Regardless of the financial breakdown, the overriding lesson of the Mississippi Miracle is clear. Education funding must incentivize specific results to maximize outcomes for students, and transparency and accountability are essential inputs for achieving any results. Even as Nebraska lawmakers continue to re-engineer funding flows, they must ensure taxpayer funds are delivering the greatest possible benefit to students.