In our previous post, we looked at the performance of students in the United States over the past decade. By pulling together fourth and eighth grade student performance on the math and reading assessments, we compiled a composite score we could use to approximate student achievement.
What did we find? At the national level, the achievement gap between black and white students and the gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students narrowed and overall performance increased across student groups. Despite the gains, serious differences in performance still persist between student groups. As we looked more closely, we found that this narrative masked a more complicated collection of stories from the individual states.
While the United States as a whole has made gradual progress in addressing urgent inequities, the individual states have improved in a markedly uneven manner. Some states made significant progress at improving the opportunities for low-income and minority students—evinced by large gains in composite scores and increases in proficiency—and yet other states largely failed to make any progress at all. A few states even fell further behind.
The national-level NAEP data may depict a gradual slope upward for minority and low-income students but the state-level data show lines radiating in many directions. Although the fact that academic improvement among the states is diverging has been identified several times in research, it is rarely commented upon in policy discussions—even though it may have significant implications for our understanding of the effectiveness of different state approaches to education reform.
The following charts compare the states by the gains among black, Hispanic and low-income students, three student groups traditionally poorly served by schools. (Note that some states are missing NAEP data for a student group and so are not included.)
For a closer look, click here to download a PDF of the graphs.
Close examination of the charts reveals that some states consistently outperform their peers in improving the performance of traditionally underserved student subgroups. Minority and low-income students in Rhode Island, Maryland and New Jersey all grew far above the average rate of improvement though the same student groups in Washington, Oregon and Iowa either flat-lined or declined over the same time period.
Of course, the average gain on a composite NAEP score is just one measure of student improvement. Left unaddressed so far is the question of gains in proficiency—after all, the average performance of a state could increase through gains among already high-achieving students without increasing overall proficiency rates. However, research demonstrates that increases in average growth rates correlate well with improvements in student proficiency rates.
In a 2012 report, Eric Hanushek found that “what is happening on average in each state is, more often than not, happening to both those who are higher performing and those who are the most challenged.” As the charts in our previous post show, reductions in ‘below basic’ status were accompanied by gains in ‘proficient’ status. It appears that a better-taught tide makes all boats, er, smarter.
In sum, some states are improving average student performance and helping more of their lowest-performing students attain proficiency in the core subjects of math and reading. Some of the gainers are low-achieving states climbing up from the bottom and others are not gaining but already enjoy top-ten status among all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Yet some states, with significant consequences for students, have neither achieved high student performance in absolute terms nor made significant gains over the past ten years (see the below tables).
Consider Iowa. Fourth graders in Iowa, one of the slower-growing states, once tested above the national average by ten points on the NAEP reading assessment and 11 points on the math assessment. Twenty years later, the Iowa fourth grade class is now about tied with the national average. If present trends continue unabated, students in Iowa will be behind most of their national peers in another 20 years. Within the span of one generation, student performance in Iowa will go from besting most that of most other states in the country to struggling to maintain mediocrity.
The consequences of this divergent state performance extend far beyond bragging rights for state educational agencies. There are also significant consequences for the pursuit of educational equity. The size of the difference between the growth made by black students in Nevada and those in Washington over the past decade is equivalent to roughly half of the overall gap between black and white students nationally. If progress toward an equitable education system is a race towards the finish line, some states are running like Usain Bolt and others are waddling like Honey Boo Boo.
A 2013 report by John Chubb and Constance Clark considered two factors that might potentially explain the differences in improvement: the state’s previous performance and the economic disadvantage within the state. If a state was particularly high-flying in the 1990s, perhaps the subsequent declines in performance simply reflected a reversion to the mean. If it wasn’t prior performance, maybe it was economic disadvantage. A state with many economically disadvantaged students might be expected to have slower growth than wealthier, better-resourced states.
Chubb and Clark assert that neither of these explanations could account for much of the variation in state improvement. While allowing for the possibility of another factor not accounted for in their analysis, the authors proposed another variable was responsible for the differences between states. “Policymakers should accept as fact that student achievement is rapidly diverging at the state level,” the authors wrote, “and public policy is probably playing a key role.”
Although establishing causation is more than a little difficult in this context, our laboratories of democracy are hard at work with 50 different approaches to education reform and the results may be emerging. It is premature to assert that the data and research point to a commitment to reform policy as the cause for the more significant improvements among reform-friendly states like Georgia, New Jersey and Maryland but they’re certainly gesturing that changes in policy—or an as-of-yet unidentified other variable—is playing a large role.
Researchers and advocates alike would be well-served to examine if state policies are associated with student growth and high levels of achievement relative to most other states—and if so, what policies are producing these gains. Why is Maryland so consistently both at the top of absolute performance rankings and improvement rankings? Why have Hispanic students in Nevada and Arizona improved so much more than in neighboring California or Colorado? What characterizes Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin and other states that frequently fall to the bottom in levels of achievement and growth? As is often suggested by critics, are state school systems impaired from the recent policy reforms?
This last question is one that the data can address. States that are commonly viewed as reform-friendly are represented often at the top of the rankings. Rhode Island, a state that is no stranger to education reform, is doing a much better job on delivering on the promise of an equitable school system than it did a decade ago. Throughout this decade, policymakers in Washington, DC have pursued significant reforms that attracted the attention of the country. Today, it occupies a top-ten position among the states when ranked by the growth of each of its black, low-income and general student populations. If education reform is destroying public education, it is sure hidden well by the data.
In addition to policymakers, parents ought to pay close attention to the divergence of the states. Particularly for those parents sending their kindergarteners to school for the first time this fall, their students will be in these systems for the next 13 years. As some systems improve far faster than others, parents must consider the implications these trends have for their own students. The United States may be moving towards a more equitable school system—but it appears some states will get there far sooner than others.
