Why Southern states are leaving blue-state schools in the dust

The education story of the year has been the “Southern Surge.” An intrepid group of southern states have led the nation in post-pandemic recovery.In a decade, Mississippi moved from 49th to seventh in the nation on fourth-grade reading scores, despite remaining the poorest state.According to Harvard’s 2024 Education Recovery Scorecard, Louisiana is the only state to recover to 2019 achievement levels in both reading and math, while Alabama matched pre-COVID scores in fourth-grade math alone.All other states continue to lag prior achievement levels.Much of this success has rightly been credited to a handful of commonsense reforms: early literacy laws that require the use of phonics, the tightening of retention and promotion policies, universal literacy screeners in early grades, and rigorous curricula.But another factor may be these states’ strict disciplinary policies.The states seeing the greatest gains academically are also the ones doing the most to bring order and stability to their schools.A teacher can use the best curriculum, and states can make schools use the best instructional methods, but if classrooms are chaotic, then students will not learn.The presence of a misbehaving peer causes other students to act out, dilutes instruction and drives down achievement for other students.Despite this, blue and red states frame discipline differently.Alabama’s regulatory codes, for example, open with a statement that “students be allowed to learn in a safe classroom setting where order and discipline are maintained,” and that “every child in Alabama” is entitled to “the right to learn in a non-disruptive environment.”Boundaries and order are treated as inherent goods.Many blue states, however, view school discipline as a necessary evil, to be limited as much as possible.California prohibits the use of suspensions for low-level misbehavior such as willful disobedience.Massachusetts imposes prerequisites on the use of suspensions, tell...