Bill Maher’s California Critique Misreads Mississippi’s Education Success

Bill Maher’s argument that California Democrats should learn from Mississippi’s education performance relies on a valid but easily overstated data point. The Learning Policy Institute blog (March 4, 2026) reports that Mississippi held first place in demographically adjusted scores in 4th- and 8th-grade reading and math in 2024. This is not the same as NAEP-adjusted scores; it is a ranking that accounts for student demographics like poverty and race. Maher conflates the two, implying Mississippi’s raw NAEP scores lead the nation when they do not. In reality, Mississippi’s 2024 NAEP fourth-grade reading scores, while historically strong—outscoring the national average for the first time—still trail several other states on raw performance.

The broader danger of Maher’s framing is that it reinforces a false binary between high-spending blue states and efficient red states. The Economic Policy Institute (2025) warns that such narratives feed efforts to defund public education through vouchers and austerity, even as new evidence shows that sustained investment in schools directly boosts student outcomes and adult earnings. Mississippi’s gains came from deliberate, well-funded literacy initiatives, not from cutting public education. The real lesson is not about party labels but about the need for stable, adequate funding—a lesson that applies to both California and Mississippi. As of now, the NAEP 2025 long-term trend results are scheduled for release on June 10, 2026, per the National Assessment Governing Board, giving us an updated national benchmark to assess real progress.