World class education in the “country” of Massachusetts: Shameless self promotion

by David Safier

This idea began as a blog post, then I did a whole lot more research and turned it into a column in The Explorer.

The basic idea: if we break the U.S. into geographical units, we find some areas, like the Northeast, are actually comparable to some of the strong scoring European countries on international tests, and Massachusetts is a standout. In the south, on the other hand, the states come out in the same general educational ballpark as Lebanon and Turkey.

So don't condemn our system of public schools outright. Disaggregate the data, find what's working and foster it, then pour lots of time, effort and money into improving student achievement in our worst performing schools.