Which state has the best schools? Traditional rankings, such as those in U.S. News, factor in school spending, write Stan Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly in Reason. In their results-only rankings of education quality, based on National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores, Virginia is number one, with Massachusetts, almost always ranked first, in second place. Florida, New Jersey and Texas round out the top five. Here’s the table. White, Latino, black and Asian stude

Testing enables social justice, argues Keri Rodrigues, founder and CEO of Massachusetts Parents United in CommonWealth Magazine. Minority and low-income parents need to know how their children are doing in school, she writes in response to an anti-testing piece by Lisa Guisbond, who represents FairTest and Citizens for Public Schools. Testing has helped improve achievement in Massachusetts schools over the last 25 years, argues Rodrigues. The state ranks first in the nation i

“Now, what I want is Facts,” said Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens’ Hard Times. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.” Before the Common Core, did teachers ask students to memorize facts without understanding? That’s a myth, argues Sandra Stotsky, who helped develop Massachusetts’ pr

New York is the best state for teachers, according to WalletHub’s analysis. Arizona ranked last. WalletHub analyzed 21 metrics, ranging from teachers’ income growth potential to pupil-teacher ratio to teacher safety.Best States for TeachersWorst States for Teachers1New York42Oklahoma2New Jersey43Montana3Illinois44New Mexico4Connecticut45North Carolina5Pennsylvania46Louisiana6Minnesota47Florida7Massachusetts48Mississippi8Wyoming49South Carolina9Ohio50Hawaii10Oregon51Arizona Wy

Charter Schools Losing the Narrative But Winning the Data writes Jonathan Chait in New York magazine. Public charter schools have shown striking success in educating disadvantaged urban students, writes Chait, citing a New York Times column by David Leonhardt. Evidence of charter success “comes from top academic researchers, studying a variety of places, including Washington, Boston, Denver, New Orleans, New York, Florida and Texas,” Leonhardt wrote. The Times‘ data site, Ups

“Letting great educators open up schools is much more cost effective than increasing spending by billions of dollars,” argues Neerav Kingsland in More Money or More Charter Schools? in Education Next. Money probably does matter in education, argue Kevin Carey and Elizabeth A. Harris in the New York Times. They cite a recent study estimating that spending 10 percent more on schools increases test scores by .018 standard deviations. Charter students gain four times that much, a

U.S. schools have a C average on Education Week‘s Quality Counts Report Card. There’s little change from last year in most categories. Check out your state’s grade on the interactive map. (B’s are in blue, C’s in brown and D’s in orange.) Massachusetts leads the nation once again with a B and a score of 86.5. New Jersey (85.6) is close behind, followed by Vermont (83.8), New Hampshire (83.4), Maryland (82.8), and Connecticut (82.7). Nevada, which earned a D and a 65 score, di