Regular HOTLINE readers know that we reported on and celebrated this story regularly over the past year or so. The real education miracle here is that the news is so good out of a deep south red state that even the NY Times couldn’t ignore it. Imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

Here’s their Sunday headline:

As recently as 2013, Mississippi ranked 49th in the country for education. Its standing seemed predictable, even inevitable, for a state with low education spending and one of the nation’s highest child poverty rates.

Today, though, Mississippi is a top 10 state for fourth graders learning how to read, and one of the best places in the country for a poor child to get an education.

How did it happen? Here’s the Times’s explanation:

In 2013, Mississippi changed the way reading is taught, embracing the “science of reading.” Teachers use sound-it-out instruction, known as phonics, and other direct methods, like the explicit teaching of vocabulary.

Around the same time, it also raised academic standards and started giving every school a letter grade.

What a revolutionary concept: grade schools and teachers on their performance!

For the teacher-union Draculas this has long been the equivalent of a necklace of garlic.

Now, add choice for every child, as Mississippi and other southern states are moving toward and you could get a real education miracle.