Which States *Actually* Have the Best Schools?

Unpack the compositional effects and the "winners" change

Everyone knows Massachusetts has the best schools in the country, right? After all, their students get the highest scores on NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card.

That’s how most people would evaluate a state’s school system. But Massachusetts is the third-richest state in the country, after DC and New York. It’s also more racially homogeneous than the average state, and relatively few of its students are non-native English speakers.

Could these advantages make Massachusetts look better than it really is?

The Urban Institute’s Matt Chingos recently ran the numbers for every state. He controlled for student demographics including gender, age, race or ethnicity, receipt of free and reduced-price lunch, special education status, and English language learner status, and then adjusted the scores accordingly. Across 4th and 8th grade math and reading Massachusetts still came in first among all the states

But I took it one step farther to find out which states did better or worse after controlling for demographics. I focused on 8th grade math. And on that metric, Massachusetts is slightly under-performing. In fact, it comes in 26th place.

To put it in numeric terms, Massachusetts students averaged 284 points on NAEP’s 8th grade math exam. But once you control for demographics, their score fell to 280 points. Massachusetts is under-performing its demographics by 3.5 points.

Which states do well on this metric? They tend to be Southern and Western states. The group of Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi are doing especially well. Those states have relatively low scores overall, but their schools are actually getting pretty good results once you consider the challenges they face.

In contrast, states in the Northeast and Midwest look particularly bad on this metric. Wyoming, which comes in 6th in overall scores, ranks that highly largely because of the advantages of its incoming student body. Its students are under-performing by 11 points (roughly equivalent to one grade level).

This analysis requires more work than a simple eye-ball comparison of raw averages, but it gives a more accurate sense of what each state’s schools are contributing to student learning.

The Urban Institute adjustments consider every form of disadvantage that we currently measure. But it’s also possible to do this sort of analysis and focus on just a single metric.

For example, would you rather send your child to school in Texas or Wisconsin?

At first glance, that seems like an easy choice. Compared to Texas, Wisconsin spends a lot more money on education, its schools have lower staffing ratios, and its teachers have more training. In 8th grade math, Wisconsin ranks 5^th while Texas comes in a distant 25^th.

But as we’ve already discussed, the overall averages can be deceiving. White students in Wisconsin do perform better than White students in Texas, but Texas has a slight edge for Hispanic students and a huge advantage for Black students.

In fact, outside of Washington, DC, Wisconsin has the largest achievement gap between Black and White students. As a result, Texas scores #1 in the nation for Black students while Wisconsin comes in last. In numeric terms, Black students in Texas score 23 (!) points higher than Black students in Wisconsin.

So the next time you hear someone talk about which state has the best schools, ask them what they mean. Are they talking about the schools, or the students who happen to go to them?