The New York Times-The Morning Newsletter
"An education success story" and "US strikes against the Islamic State in Syria."
Views expressed in this World and U.S. news summary are those of the reporters and correspondents. Accessed on 11 January 2026, 1325 UTC.
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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).
 January 11, 2026 |
Good morning. The U.S. launched strikes against the Islamic State in Syria. Prosecutors are trying to figure out how to bring the strongest case against Nicolás Maduro. And the Smithsonian removed text that referred to President Trump’s impeachments from the National Portrait Gallery. We have more below.
But first, Sarah Mervosh, an education reporter, has some good news about schools in a place you might not expect.
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| Summeral Newman, the literacy coach at Hazlehurst Elementary School in Mississippi. Rory Doyle for The New York Times |
An education ‘miracle’?
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.
Mississippi’s turnaround has been the talk of the education world over the last few years. Its success has generated awe but also skepticism. After all, it is notoriously difficult to improve schools at scale. Could the “Mississippi miracle,” as some have called it, be real?
I traveled to Mississippi last month to see for myself.
What I found is that the most common explanation for Mississippi’s progress — changing the way it teaches reading to young children — is only part of the story. The state has also held schools accountable for student test scores, an approach that fell out of favor nationally after No Child Left Behind, the maligned Bush-era education law. And it has offered teachers more support.
In other words, in a country that prizes local control of education, Mississippi takes an unusually strong role in telling schools what to do.
What Mississippi did
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| A reading lesson. Rory Doyle for The New York Times |
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.
But the state hasn’t simply demanded proficiency, as under No Child Left Behind, which set an unattainable goal of having every child in America be proficient in reading and math. Instead, Mississippi has emphasized student growth toward proficiency. Schools get credit when students improve — and double credit for the improvement of their lowest-scoring students. That means every school, rich or poor, has an incentive to help everyone.
The state also approves a list of curriculums, used by most districts. This is not always the case in other states, where decisions are often left up to individual school districts.
And the state doesn’t just punish schools that are struggling, another difference from No Child Left Behind. It also takes a proactive role in helping them.
Take the state’s literacy coaches: They are sent into the elementary schools that have the lowest reading scores each year, with a mission to teach teachers, not children. On my visit, I was surprised to find that teachers seemed to love it. That is probably because coaches are there to mentor, not to tattle on bad teachers.
Other states have tried to copy Mississippi, mostly by focusing on the science of reading. But people involved in Mississippi’s turnaround told me it was nearly impossible to cherry-pick strategies and expect results.
“You’ve got to do that and that and that,” said Carey Wright, Mississippi’s state superintendent from 2013 to 2022. “And you have also got to do it year in and year out.”
Inside one school
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| Rory Doyle for The New York Times |
One criticism of Mississippi’s approach is that it revolves around standardized testing.
I visited the elementary school in Hazlehurst, a rural area south of Jackson where more than half of children live in poverty. Students there take tests every two weeks, a greater frequency than even the state recommends.
There was also plenty of joy. I saw preschoolers sounding out letters into toy telephones, and second graders coaching one another on how to sound out words like “disappointment.” One 10-year-old named Johnny told me about the satisfaction he feels from learning: “If I make a bad grade but I’m going up, it’s like a staircase.”
A big question now is whether Mississippi can keep going in the face of declining test scores nationally. At Hazlehurst, scores have climbed to 35 percent of students reading on grade level, compared with 12 percent a decade ago.
No miracle, but real progress.
For more, including what Mississippi is doing to try to extend its gains to older students, read my full story here.
THE LATEST NEWS |
Iran
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| Demonstrations in Tehran last week. UGC/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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| The New York Times |
More International News
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Immigration
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| Protesters in Portland, Ore. yesterday. Jordan Gale for The New York Times |
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THE SUNDAY DEBATE |
Dry January has returned, testing many people’s will to abstain from alcohol for a whole month. But is the challenge beneficial?
Yes. It has helped Americans change their views by providing a space to “take a hard look not just at how much and how often we drink, but at how it affects our sleep, mood and even weight,” Bloomberg’s Lisa Jarvis writes.
No. Real behavioral change requires sustainable goals, not short-term deprivation. “The point isn’t to ‘win’ January. It’s to make January through December healthy and happy: fewer risky nights, more dinners with friends and routines that don’t depend on heroic self-control,” Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel writes for Time.
FROM OPINION |
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| Pablo Delcan |
Since the attack on Venezuela, it seems as if the old rules that govern world order are slipping away. Times Opinion asked a group of writers, including Adam Tooze and Margaret MacMillan, to consider what will come of that.
The digital economy relies on monetizing our attention. It’s time to break free by rethinking what attention is, D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt argue.
To help Iranians with their protests against the government, Western leaders should work with human rights organizations and lift sanctions, Holly Dagres writes.
Each year, The New York Times Communities Fund supports nonprofits. This year, the fund is working with seven organizations that focus on helping people through education, from preschool to vocational training. Donate to the fund here.
MORNING READS |
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| Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in Netflix’s “The Rip.” Claire Folger/Netflix |
Performance bonuses: Netflix usually pays a set fee determined upfront. But it made an exception for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
Bye, California: Google’s founders are cutting some ties to the state where they built their fortunes.
American dominance: The realist school of foreign policy holds that politics boils down to power. The Trump administration is channeling an aggressive, crude strain of realism.
Your pick: The Morning’s most-clicked link yesterday was the obituary of Hessy Levinsons Taft, a Jewish woman who, as a baby, appeared on the cover of a Nazi magazine.
Sexualized deepfakes: By letting his chatbot create nearly nude images of real people, Elon Musk is entering legally perilous territory.
A member of the Dead: Bob Weir, whose songwriting and inventive timing on the rhythm guitar helped shape the sound of the Grateful Dead, has died at 78. Here are 10 of his most notable performances.
SPORTS |
N.F.L.: The Chicago Bears earned their first playoff win in 15 years with a victory over the Green Bay Packers in the wild-card round.
M.L.B.: Alex Bregman, one of this off-season’s top free agents, has agreed to a five-year, $175 million contract with the Chicago Cubs, according to league sources.
Fans: Hand-knitted jerseys — and patterns to make your own — are popping up on sites like Etsy as fans find ways to combine their love of sports with their love of crafting.
BOOK OF THE WEEK |
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“Strangers,” by Belle Burden: A divorce memoir might not sound like ideal new year reading, but Burden, a lawyer and descendant of a storied American family, hits the mark with her introspective debut. The book begins at the dawn of the pandemic, when the author and her family decamp to their summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. As soon as they’re settled — as settled as anyone could be — Burden’s husband of 20 years announces that he’s done with their marriage, all of it. He doesn’t want custody of the couple’s three children; he provides no explanation for his sudden exit. Burden offers a day-by-day account of what happened next, juxtaposing the dismantling of life as she knew it with the comings and goings of an osprey family that nests on her land. Her privilege is immense, as is her pain. Both are laid bare with grace.
More on books
THE INTERVIEW |
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| The New York Times |
This week’s subject for The Interview is George Saunders, whose new novel, “Vigil,” about two angelic beings who visit the deathbed of an oil tycoon, is out this month. Saunders is not just known as a writer of fiction, but also, ever since his 2013 convocation speech at Syracuse University on the benefits of kindness, as something of a guru of goodness. This is a label he’s not entirely comfortable with, as we discussed.
Recently you won a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation, and in one of the introductory speeches, you were referred to as “the ultimate teacher of kindness and of craft.” You’re often positioned in terms of kindness and goodness, almost as a kind of secular saint. And — you just rolled your eyes.
I was just keeping myself from levitating.
I wonder if we can complicate that positioning a little bit.
The whole kindness thing came out of a talk I did at Syracuse, and the point was not that it’s easy, but that it’s impossible. I was never making the case that I had got it, because I don’t. I’m anxious, and I’m sometimes pretty grumpy and I’m also way too busy. That secular-saint business — I’m resisting that narrative, because it jars with what I know about myself as an actual person.
People who are interested in ideas of kindness are a self-selecting group of people. But for this other group of people who maybe aren’t thinking about or don’t care about questions of kindness, is there anything you would suggest that they read to open up the door a little bit?
Well, I want to push back on your framing, because even the worst turd on the planet, if you fall down in front of him, he’s going to help you up. So then we get to a different statement of your question: A person who in his own life does value kindness and does love his parents, love his kids, why does he hit the switch on whatever harmful thing he’s doing? That’s a deep question. You can look at our politics right now, and I don’t really have an answer.
Read more of the interview here. Or watch a longer version on YouTube.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE |
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THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … |
Try decorating rooms in your house with colors inspired by individual items or concepts.
Experience Olympic sports like slalom and skeleton without a trip to Milan.
Accomplish more this year by reading these books recommended by psychologists, researchers and executive coaches.
MEAL PLAN |
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New year, new me? If you’re hunting for healthy recipes — breakfast, lunch, dinner, anything — you’re in the right place. Emily Weinstein’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter recommends this fantastic one-pan spicy chicken and mushrooms dish from Yewande Komolafe. Here, she simmers chicken thighs in a sauce of roasted red peppers enhanced with miso and anchovies.
NOW TIME TO PLAY |
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Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were mourning, rumoring and unmooring.
Can you put eight historical events — including the Iranian revolution, the creation of the food pyramid and the origins of the silhouette — in chronological order? Take this week’s Flashback quiz.
And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.