Fixing the Currently Biased State K-12 Education Rankings by Stan J. Liebowitz and Matthew L. Kelly of the University of Texas at Dallas is your “must-read” study of the day.
Liebowitz and Kelly find that rankings produced by U.S. News & World Report and Education Week are unreliable and misleading. They contend that the methodology used by these publications skew their rankings “in favor of homogeneously white states” like Maine. Racially diverse states are at a disadvantage. When properly adjusting for these differences, the rankings change significantly.
North Carolina jumps from 23rd in the U.S. News & World Report ranking to 13th. (See Table 1.)
The authors also examine spending efficiency. (See Table 2.) North Carolina fares well in this ranking too.
