JOANNE JACOBS: It’s a marathon, not a miracle.

As founder of the education nonprofit Mississippi First, Canter saw her home state start getting serious about meeting higher expectations in 2008. That change included state power to take over low-performing districts, A-F grades for schools and districts based on student achievement and challenging new learning standards.

The state’s literacy law passed in 2013: Schools screen students’ reading skills three times a year and report progress to parents. Students can’t read adequately by the end of third grade are held back a year. The law meant “everyone in the system would be in a hellfire hurry to teach children to read,” writes Canter. “No one wanted children to fail.”

Accountability works — who’d have thought?