(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
The Education Trust has released a new analysis of ethnic and income based achievement gaps using NAEP data. They take a fairly comprehensive view, noting that some gap narrowing (with overall improvement) is much better than others (with the gaps narrowing due to stagnation or declines among advantaged students). Overall performance matters as well, etc.
Overall, they have a winner’s circle of states: Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Texas and Vermont. Also a “bottom states” category: Arizona, California, Michigan, Mississippi and Rhode Island.
I wonder what the flat-earthers few remaining opponents of Florida’s reforms will have to say about this study. I’ll check in at the Gradebook Florida ed policy blog to find out, as the comments section is a haunt for this very interesting group of people. I wonder if they have heard the story about the Japanese soldier who hid in a swamp and defended a Pacific Island from Allied invasion until the early 1970s…
Having looked at Florida’s NAEP scores from the 1990s, which were both very low and flat, it seems likely to me that had this analysis been done in 1998, Florida would have been either in or near the loser’s circle.
Speaking as an Arizonan, well, let’s just say we have a lot of work to do out here in the desert.
Posted by matthewladner 
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