As many districts still struggle to help their students regain academic progress lost during the pandemic, a handful of states have stood out for bucking the trend in reading and math achievement.
The phenomenon, sometimes called the “Southern Surge,” refers to learning gains in four Southern states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. These data garnered widespread attention last year after state and national tests showed elementary schoolers in these states maintaining scores, or growing, while many other states continued to struggle.
What’s creating these successes? There’s no one clear answer, and advocates and observers have proposed a range of hypotheses: science of reading reforms, rigorous state school accountability policies, “knowledge building” reading curricula, investments in early childhood education, or even strict policies regarding student discipline.
A new report on Alabama takes a deep dive into what’s driving achievement in the state, with a focus on K-3 reading. Alabama was one of only two states to see small score improvements on a national test of 4th grade reading over the course of the pandemic; the other was Louisiana. The report, from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education reform think tank, draws on interviews with state and district leaders and observations of classroom practice.
“Alabama has a pretty clear throughline in a way other states do not. Everyone there is in agreement about what’s working,” said Liana Loewus, a journalist and communications consultant, and the author of the report. (Loewus was also formerly an assistant managing editor at Education Week.)
Still, that doesn’t mean the state offers a prescription other states can necessarily adopt wholesale, she said. “This is what’s working in Alabama. Every state has to take the pieces that will work in its geographic and political context,” said Loewus.
Read on for four takeaways about Alabama’s efforts to improve reading instruction.
1. Alabama took a ‘top-down approach’
As the science of reading movement has spread across the country, states have taken different approaches to shifting instructional practice.
Some have relied on mandates, requiring districts to train teachers and adopt new materials, or making it illegal to use certain discredited teaching methods. Others have mainly offered incentives, guidance, and support.
Alabama falls squarely in the first camp. “The state is very prescriptive,” Loewus said. “There are only two approved curricula. The 3rd grade retention law is pretty top-down. The state has threatened educator-preparation programs with a $1 million penalty if they don’t get in line and teach science-of-reading-based material to teacher candidates.”
In general, Southern states tend to take a more “top-down” approach, she continued. And in Alabama, long-tenured state leaders were able to maintain a focus on reading instruction over time.
Still, prescriptive approaches aren’t politically popular everywhere. Teachers’ unions in Indiana, New Mexico, and Ohio have pushed back against legislation they say robs educators of the professional autonomy they should have to use the methods they think work best. In New York, state department of education leaders have said science of reading guidance was not a mandate for school districts to make any specific changes.
“A top-down approach in other states, especially those that have really powerful union presence, it just can’t happen that way,” Loewus said. But that doesn’t necessarily mean other strategies couldn’t also raise reading scores, she added.
2. Not all coaching is created equal
Alabama’s approach to raising reading scores relied in large part on coaching teachers in best practices, Loewus said.
It’s not an unusual strategy—29 states have implemented some form of literacy coaching, according to a tracker maintained by the advocacy organization ExcelinEd. Coaching was also a linchpin of Mississippi’s much-touted rise in reading scores.
But research has found that while coaching can have a substantial effect on student outcomes, it can provide diminishing returns as programs scale up and reach more teachers.
In Alabama, a few features of the state’s coaching approach set it apart, Loewus said. Each elementary school has one reading coach, paid for and trained by the state. That means all coaches go into schools with the same knowledge base, she said.
Importantly, coaches can’t be diverted from their work to step into other school roles, like administering assessments or delivering interventions. School districts are required to sign a memorandum of understanding with the state stipulating as much before they receive funding for coaches.
That protection around coaches’ time is unusual, Loewus said, and results in concentrated, individualized attention for teachers.
3. ‘Money matters’
The kind of coaching Alabama put in place is expensive: $85,000 per coach annually, costing the state about $152 million for the 2026-27 school year.
“I do think money matters,” Loewus said. It can come from the state, as in Alabama, or other sources.
In Mississippi, for example, philanthropic funding created the Barksdale Reading Institute, which served as a hub for reading initiatives. Louisiana has relied heavily on federal funding through Comprehensive Literacy State Development grants, Loewus said.
“You need a funding mechanism,” she said.
4. Alabama’s gains don’t persist through middle school
While Alabama has had success with elementary reading, its 8th grade NAEP reading scores are still among the lowest in the country.
National test data show that in general, middle school scores have been slower to rebound post-pandemic.
The Fordham report only focuses on Alabama’s policies around elementary reading. It’s possible that gains in middle school may materialize on future national tests, Loewus said, as the state’s most recent literacy reforms have only unfolded over the past decade.
Some have argued that states need to extend science of reading reforms into higher grades, where many students still struggle with foundational reading skills. A few states, including Indiana, Mississippi, and Virginia, have required screening and intervention systems to extend through 8th grade.
Still, reading demands in middle school and beyond are more varied and complex than in elementary grades—and the challenges kids face can be, too. Districts can’t just port the same approaches from elementary to middle school and expect results, experts say.
