Among the major issues facing the 2026 session of the Oklahoma Legislature, the effort to improve reading outcomes in state schools is expected to be one of the most high-profile, with growing momentum for adopting the Mississippi model.

Mississippi law requires early assessment of grade-school reading skills, aggressive intervention for those falling behind, and retention for third-grade students who remain far below grade level, rather than allowing social promotion of students based on age.

When Oklahoma had a similar law in place from 2011 to 2014, the state experienced a major improvement in reading outcomes, but the law was largely gutted starting in 2014, and results in Oklahoma have since fallen off a cliff and are now among the nation’s worst.

Mississippi, in contrast, adopted its law about the same time as Oklahoma and stuck with it, and included a strong emphasis on phonics-based instruction. Today, Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading outcomes rank in the top 10 states nationally. Experts have urged Oklahoma lawmakers to reinstate the Mississippi model in Oklahoma.

New Spending Required?

But some critics argue the Mississippi model requires a massive amount of new spending in Oklahoma public schools.

For example, John Thompson, a retired teacher in Oklahoma, recently rattled off a list of new expenses that Oklahoma will supposedly have to begin if a Mississippi system is adopted here.

“What are the chances that Oklahoma would adequately fund such programs?” Thompson wrote.

But experts say Mississippi’s additional expenses were relatively minor, especially given that Oklahoma schools have more than $9.6 billion in revenue annually.

“The Mississippi model does not require massive amounts of new funding,” said Casey Sullivan Taylor, senior policy director in literacy for ExcelinEd. “In some states, reallocation of existing funds is possible.”

In the 2013-2014 school year, Taylor said the Mississippi State Legislature provided $9 million in funding to support the first year of implementation of the Mississippi Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA). In subsequent years, the annual allocation increased to $15 million.

Of that $15 million in funding, 61 percent pays for literacy coaches to work with teachers across Mississippi and train them in the science of reading, which refers to the practices proven to generate the best results, including phonics-based instruction.

Another 17 percent of the $15 million pays for professional development for teachers, while 4 percent goes to instructional materials. Another 15 percent pays for the K-3 assessment support system, and 3 percent goes to K-3 literacy support salaries.

Notably, revenue in Oklahoma schools has skyrocketed in recent years, but reading outcomes have continued to decline, as have other measures of academic achievement.

Return on Investment?

According to financial data reported by schools to the state’s Oklahoma Cost Accounting System (OCAS), new revenue in Oklahoma public schools reached $9,600,703,488 in the 2023-2024 school year. Since student enrollment was 698,923 that year, that comes out to an average of $13,736 per pupil.

That means per-pupil revenue has increased by 51 percent since the 2017-2018 school year, when Oklahoma public schools reported having $6,300,400,107 in new revenue and statewide enrollment of 694,816 for an average of $9,067 per student.

The average per-pupil revenue in Oklahoma public schools is now significantly more than the average private-school tuition in Oklahoma, according to figures compiled by Private School Review.

And other calculations indicate Oklahoma’s public-school revenue may be even higher.

A report released in April, “Rankings of the States 2024 and Estimates of School Statistics 2025,” by NEA Research, found that Oklahoma public schools had $14,066 in revenue receipts per student in the 2023-2024 school year when calculated based on average daily attendance.

When Edunomics Lab analyzed return-on-investment (ROI) data from 2013 to 2024, tracking National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math alongside per-pupil spending, researchers found Oklahoma’s per-pupil spending far outpaced inflation, but Oklahoma’s NAEP scores were far lower today than in 2013.

In Oklahoma, Edunomics noted, “Reading 4th grade scores fell through the decade and continue to decline even as spending increased.”

And a recent report that gave Oklahoma’s K-12 education system low marks notably emphasized that spending increases alone were unlikely to change the system’s trajectory.

The report, released by WalletHub, a personal finance company, ranked Oklahoma’s public-school system 50th nationwide out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.  While that ranking was based on 32 metrics that included more than academic outcomes, the report’s findings are generally in line with the results of NAEP tests administered in Oklahoma and nationwide in 2024.

However, experts cited in the WalletHub report warned that simply increasing spending on Oklahoma schools was unlikely to have a significant benefit if nothing else was changed.

Numerous national experts have noted that dramatic improvements in reading outcomes in Mississippi and a handful of other southern states have occurred without breaking the bank. In fact, some of the nation’s most successful reading states are also among those spending the least per pupil.

Frederick M. Hess, director of education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted in an Aug. 21, 2025, article in National Review that several southern states have defied claims that funding explains academic achievement.

“Moreover, to the consternation of so many advocates, academics, and union honchos, the Southern surge teaches an inconvenient lesson about school spending. In Louisiana, between the 2014–15 and 2023–24 school years, after-inflation spending increased 27 percent, to $17,500 per pupil. Spending was up 8 percent, to $12,500, in Mississippi; 5 percent, to $12,600, in Tennessee; and 14 percent, to $13,200, in Alabama. This is not a story of big bucks. Consider that in Illinois, per pupil spending was $21,700 in 2023–24, up 19 percent over the past decade. In Massachusetts, it was up 19 percent, to $26,100; 30 percent, to $19,000, in California; and 12 percent, to $31,514, in New York. For those convinced that the key to school improvement is always more money, the Southern surge is, shall we say, unhelpful.”

Marc Porter Magee, CEO & founder of FiftyCAN, an organization devoted to ensuring “a high-quality education for all kids, regardless of their address,” made a similar point in a post on X, writing, “The inconvenient truth about the ‘Southern Surge’: money didn’t buy these results, hard choices did.”

Other experts have noted that reading outcomes improved in Mississippi and a handful of other states without having to also be in the top 10 for per-pupil spending.

An April 23, 2025, article by Vince Bielski, writing for RealClear Investigations about the educational improvements occurring in Louisiana and Mississippi, noted that “both states are in the bottom quartile in public education spending, suggesting that better schools aren’t just a matter of funding.”

“With 38 states declining in early literacy in that time span, the dramatic rise of the two southern states is extraordinary,” Bielski wrote. “They were dead last in the 2011 rankings. In Mississippi, proficiency jumped by 10 percentage points to 32 percent by 2024, the most growth of any state. It’s now 10th in the nation, far ahead of states like New York that spend more per student. What’s more, Mississippi climbs to first place in reading proficiency when adjusted for differences in state poverty levels in an Urban Institute ranking.”

Karen Vaites, founder of the Curriculum Insight Project, wrote in a February post, “The Southern Surge cements the case that money is not everything. All four states are in the bottom half for per-pupil spending, and Mississippi and Tennessee are in the bottom 10.”

Where funding is increased, Vaites wrote that policymakers need to “channel dollars towards specific and proven initiatives, not just district budgets.”

Notably, when Oklahoma adopted a Mississippi-style reading law in 2011 and enjoyed several years of dramatic improvement, state school revenue was notably lower than today.

In the 2011 state budget year, Oklahoma public schools reported $5,687,856,129 in new revenue with a reported total student membership of 659,911, providing an average of $8,619 per pupil.

When Senate Bill 346, which first mandated a Mississippi-style reading program in Oklahoma, was debated on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives on April 14, 2011, then-state Rep. Jason Nelson, R-Oklahoma City, pushed back against those deriding the program as an “unfunded mandate.”

He noted that the cost of reading instruction has been a core part of school funding since statehood, saying that lawmakers “already mandate and give them boatloads of money at the schools to teach kids to read.”

“Why do we spend $4.5 billion on education if reading is not one of those requirements?” Nelson said. “It’s already a mandate.”