Min Jin Lee’s new novel asks why Korean families care so much about education. A hagwon is a private after-school academy.

"I mean, it's better than not caring very much about education. In the States, hardly any politician talks about reading, math, or science levels. It's like a taboo subject. Almost no one in America blinks if a child practices all the time for a sport, but it's somehow terrible if a child studies nonstop", she said. "I enjoy sports, but most kids won't become athletes. Nearly every kid could benefit from getting a sound education."

“Mississippi took a lot of cues from Alabama,” says Kelly Butler, the former chief executive officer of the Barksdale Reading Institute, a philanthropically funded effort to train teachers and improve reading instruction across Mississippi. In the early 2000s, “they were doing great stuff.…But they abandoned [those efforts] and we ran with them.”

Now, however, Alabama is riding a second wave of policy reforms, and its scores are on the rise again. It’s part of the so-called “Southern Surge” of states making academic gains since the pandemic.