(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
The American Legislative Exchange Council has released the 17th edition of the Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress and Reform. This edition has a forward by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and was coauthored by yours truly and Dan Lips.
Dan and I have updated the rankings of state academic performance based upon general education low-income students to reflect the 2011 NAEP and the rankings of state policy based upon the latest available rankings available.
Dan and I build the case that the historic changes seen in K-12 reform in 2011 represent “the end of the beginning” in the battle for K-12 Reform. Far, far, far more remains to be done than has been done of course, but from tenure reform to parental choice, reformers began to hold their own in 2011 for the first time on a widespread basis.
Chapter 2 is a formalized thought experiment on state academic achievement. Loyal Jayblog readers will recognize it from prototype arguments that were tested here in the blogosphere proving grounds. Chapter 3 provides a detailed ranking of state learning gains by student subgroups on the combined NAEP exams.
The book features state pages providing a wealth of information on each state, like this:
Finally, the fourth chapter discusses trends in technology based learning. You can download your copy for free here. If you would like a paper copy, email me and I’ll see what I can do.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
This will be interesting reading. Let’s hope you are correct about the “end of the beginning.”
It’s good to see Dan Lips publishing in education again!