Trump credits Mississippi's Republican leadership with education turnaround

President Trump hailed Mississippi's Republican leadership in a speech Monday night as the reason that education in the state has improved recently, after a study last year placed the state as 16th in education nationwide. 

Studies from a decade ago placed Mississippi at 48th in education, and it was ranked 30th in education as recently as 2024 and 39th in 2022, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book. But in 2025, the same study ranked it 16th.

Another study, the Education Week Quality Counts* report, ranked Mississippi No. 2 in the nation for improvement in 2019, 2020 and 2021, according to the state. 

The president highlighted the state's success in a speech in Corinth, Mississippi, crediting the improvement to its Republican leadership and his administration's investment in school choice.

"We just made the largest-ever investment in school choice," Trump said. "People love school choice, and under Republican leadership, Mississippi has gone from having the worst-ranked schools in the nation to among the best-ranked schools in the nation. Thank you, governor" Tate Reeves.

The speech comes as the president touts Republican candidates ahead of the November midterms next week. Trump campaigned for Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and slammed her opponent Scott Colom as a "shameless phony" with the "radical left," who "pretends to be a moderate."

Trump will speak in Texas on Tuesday.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.