Once home to WFSB Channel 3 – the upscale apartment project is now a source of campaign donations for Luke Bronin. - Wait What?

Once home to WFSB Channel 3 – the upscale apartment project is now a source of campaign donations for Luke Bronin. - Wait What?:

Once home to WFSB Channel 3 – the upscale apartment project is now a source of campaign donations for Luke Bronin.

In November 2014, the Hartford Business Journal reported on a project called the “Residences at River View,” a new building designed to replace what was once the WFSB Ch. 3 studios.  The HBJ wrote;

Engineer-developer Abul Islam [President and CEO of AI Engineers, Inc. of Middletown, Connecticut] has gotten state and city funding commitments to proceed with opening a $17.7 million, six-story office-apartment tower in downtown Hartford’s Constitution Plaza within two years, authorities say.

Residences at Riverview will have 49 upscale apartments atop some 16,000 square feet of street-level office-retail space on No. 3 Constitution Plaza…

According to the news report, Governor Dannel Malloy got the State Bond Commission to provide $4.2 million for the project and Malloy’s Department of Housing added another $1.8 million.  The City of Hartford is putting up $973,000.  In addition to the $7 million in public funds, the remainder of the project comes via an $8 million loan from “an unidentified lender” and private funds from the developer.

According to the published reports, in addition to the 49 luxury apartments,

“Eight apartments will be earmarked as affordable.”

Enter Hartford Mayoral candidate Luke Bronin;

Two months ago A.I. Engineers’ Abul Islam, a Glastonbury resident, provided Luke Bronin with a $1,000 check to help fund his campaign to become Mayor of Hartford.

A couple weeks later the developer’s son who resides at the same address added another $1,000.  According to Bronin’s campaign finance report, the son is a “Business Development Associate” at AI Engineers, although he isn’t actually listed on the company’s website.

The Company’s General Counsel has donated $750 to Bronin’s campaign so far and two of Once home to WFSB Channel 3 – the upscale apartment project is now a source of campaign donations for Luke Bronin. - Wait What?:

solidaridad: Policing students and testocracy

solidaridad: Policing students and testocracy:

Policing students and testocracy

While the individuals responsible for brutality at Spring Valley High School need to be held accountable, we also need to see the context in which this type of response to students is systemic within #testocracy. There is increased pressure for compliance in drill and kill test prep and producing the data on test scores. This is apparent in public schools and also in charters that get pushed by billionaires and corporations using testing as a tool to attack public schools and privatize them. 

Look at examples of the school to prison pipeline in Chicago where Rahm promoted one charter that doled out over $400,000 in fines to students for things like chewing gum or slouching.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/education/in-chicago-noble-charter-schools-punish-with-cash-fines.html?_r=0

Also the Moskowitz’s ‘Suspension’ Academy’s Code of Misconduct
(Success Academy)  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/moskowitzs-suspension-aca_b_8388616.html

And  At KIPP, “they wouldn’t have desks at first” and then they are “chained to a desk 10 hours a day”http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/07/at-kipp-they-wouldnt-have-desks-at.html

This is good background on Fields, Spring Valley High School and other incidents involving SROs.http://www.attn.com/stories/3856/high-school-police-officers-spring-valley?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=internal

Also many more connections from a previous collection herehttp://itspeoplepower.tumblr.com/post/107889945593/blacklivesmatter-racist-testing-and-prison

solidaridad: Policing students and testocracy:

The Obama Administration’s (Smoke and Mirrors) Calls for “Less Testing” | VAMboozled!

The Obama Administration’s (Smoke and Mirrors) Calls for “Less Testing” | VAMboozled!:

The Obama Administration’s (Smoke and Mirrors) Calls for “Less Testing”

For those of you who have not yet heard, last weekend the Obama Administration released a new “Testing Action Plan” in which the administration calls for a “decreased,” “curbed,” “reversed,” less “obsessed,” etc. emphasis on standardized testing for the nation. The plan, headlined as such, has hit the proverbial “front pages” of many news (and other) outlets since. See, for example, articles in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, CNN, US News & World Report,Education Week, and the like.

The gist of the “Testing Action Plan” is that student-level tests, when “[d]one poorly, in excess, or without clear purpose…take valuable time away from teaching and learning, draining creative approaches from our classrooms.” It is about time the federal government acknowledges this, officially, and kudos to them for “bear[ing] some of the responsibility for this” throughout the nation. However, they also assert that testing is, nevertheless, still essential as long as tests “take up the minimum necessary time, and reflect the expectation that students will be prepared for success.”

What is this “necessary time” of which they speak?

They set the testing limits for all states not to exceed 2%. More specifically, they, “recommend that states place a cap on the percentage of instructional time students spend taking required statewide standardized assessments to ensure that… [pause marker added] no child spends more than 2 percent of her classroom time taking these tests [emphasis added].” Notice the circumlocution here as per No Child Left Behind(NCLB) — that which substantively helped bring us to become such a test-crazed nation in the first place.

When I first heard this, though, the first thing I did was pull out my trusty calculator to The Obama Administration’s (Smoke and Mirrors) Calls for “Less Testing” | VAMboozled!:

Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission

In a major education policy speech this morning, Mayor Nutter called for the dissolution of the School Reform Commission and the return of a local board of education.

"Of all the policy recommendations I make today, none will have a bigger impact on Philadelphia than a return to local control," he told an audience of invited guests at WHYY.

After 15 years, Nutter said, "it's time for the experiment to end."

In addition to shifting power to a nine-member, mayorally appointed board, Nutter called for School Advisory Councils at every neighborhood school.

"While I believe that the SRC and its many members have functioned to the best of their abilities and with good intentions, we Philadelphians deserve to govern our own schools," Nutter said. "A return to local control would give us real authority over the education of our children."

He laid out a plan that would complete the transfer of power in September 2018. Conditions for the changeover would include "full funding for public education" by the state and a "student-weighted" education funding formula. This would allow the District, he said, to "adhere to its five-year financial-stability planning process that demonstrates the District's structural balance."

Then there would be a year of "public hearings on governance, debates, and forums on how best to improve education," said Nutter. "Only then will we be in the right place to govern our schools locally." 

By 2017, he said, the District would put in place "new accountability practices" and begin the legal process for the transfer of power together with the governor, secretary of education, and the SRC. The changeover would occur the following September.

In Nutter's vision, the new Board of Education, like the one the SRC displaced, would have nine members: five appointed outright by the mayor, four chosen from 12 recommended by City Council.

The SRC can only be dissolved if the members vote the commission out of existence or if the state legislature changes the law that created it.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Mayor: Dissolve the School Reform Commission | Philadelphia Public School Notebook:

CURMUDGUCATION: Cartman Rules

CURMUDGUCATION: Cartman Rules:

Cartman Rules

What is absolutely guaranteed to pop the wheels right off the school bus when it comes to order and atmosphere and culture and just plain treating children with the decency to which they are entitled because they are A) living human beings and B) here?

Cartman rules. (NSFW ahead)

Yeah, that's the whole point of a Cartman Rule. You will respect my authoritah. You will acknowledge that I am The Man. You will do whatever the hell I say because I AM the boss of you.

Is there anything more ridiculous, more silly, more counterproductive, more flat out disrespectful than getting in a grudge match with a child or young adult with absolutely no intent except to force them, through word or deed, to acknowledge that they respect your authority?

I wish it weren't true, but we've all seen it too many times within the walls of a school. The kid laughs with the wrong kind of smile. The kid responds to a direction with a shrug instead of quick compliance. The kid gives all the appearance of not giving a rat's rear about what he's just been told.

And the Enforcer of the Cartman Rule completely loses the thread. What were we trying to do? Were we trying to cover the instruction for today's lesson? Were we trying to get the class focused on a CURMUDGUCATION: Cartman Rules:

New corporate misconduct database reveals top violators

New corporate misconduct database reveals top violators:

New corporate misconduct database reveals top violators

Large corporations are responsible for a vast majority of penalties levied over the past five years on companies that have violated American environmental, health and safety laws. According to a new corporate misconduct database compiled by the think tank Good Jobs First, Fortune 500 companies and non-U.S. Fortune Global 500 companies account for over 80 percent of the $60 billion in penalties imposed by U.S. federal regulatory agencies since 2010.

“The never-ending cases of corporate wrongdoing, seen most recently in the Volkswagen emissions scandal, make it essential for policymakers, advocates, journalists, and the general public to have access to systematic information across agencies,” Philip Mattera, the first research director at Good Jobs First, said in a statement accompanying the report.

Toward this end, the so-called Violation Tracker database includes approximately 100,000 cases with penalties of $5,000 or more initiated by 13 federal agencies dealing with the environment and a wide range of health and safety issues. In order to track these penalties, the database matches parent with subsidiary companies.

The top 10 parent companies with $100 million or more in environmental, health and safety penalties since the beginning of 2010.  Good Jobs First/BP And Its Brethren

Unsurprisingly, British oil giant BP PLC -- responsible for the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- tops the list of violators. The company’s massive $25.4 billion fine far exceeds that of any other company and puts the oil and gas sector at the top of the sectors most affected by penalties.

According to the database, BP has 66 recorded violations -- most of them smaller than $100,000 -- from a variety of subsidiaries.

“Also high on the list is Transocean -- the company from which BP leased the ill-fated offshore drilling rig -- as a result of two settlements totaling $1.4 billion it reached with the Justice Department in 2013 on civil and criminal charges,” the report found.

However, in terms of the number of recorded violations, Virginia-based mining company Alpha Natural Resources tops the list, with nearly 2,500 violations and over $500 million in fines since 2010.

In total, 40 parent companies have paid more than $100 million in penalties since 2010, while eight large corporations and their subsidiaries have paid over $1 billion for environmental, health and safety violations.

“The fact that so many of the companies in Violation Tracker are repeat offenders highlights the need to find more effective ways to deter corporate recidivists,” Mattera added, in the statement.New corporate misconduct database reveals top violators:

Discover Which Corporations are the Biggest Violators of Environmental, Health and Safety Laws Throughout the United States

Violation Tracker is the first national search engine on corporate misconduct. Version 1.0 covers environmental, health and safety cases initiated by 13 federal regulatory agencies since 2010, including those referred to the Justice Department. Other violations (banking, antitrust, wage & hour, etc.) will be added later. Violation Tracker is produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First.

BP and Its Brethren (a report analyzing the largest violators)
Data Sources
User Guide

Send questions or comments to Philip Mattera of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First.

The Violation Tracker site was built with the help of Rich Puchalsky of Grassroots Connection.

http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker

If the president won’t put children first, who will? - The Hechinger Report

If the president won’t put children first, who will? - The Hechinger Report:

If the president won’t put children first, who will? 

hools of all types have failed black and brown students as well as families in poverty and we need a president devoted to equity, accountability and achievement.

So why are Democratic presidential candidates backing off education reform?

During the most recent Democratic presidential debate, not one candidate pushed a position of any substance on elementary and secondary education.

Their silence says a lot.

It’s politically smart for Democrats to avoid family feuds. They are taking full advantage of a fractured Republican Party, and they certainly don’t want to split Democrats because of differing views on education.

Related: Early education popular with voters, but what about candidates?

An aspiring nominee must unify the diversity within the base, and education won’t provide the political glue for the Democratic party – Republican dysfunction is providing that.

Education only became a problem for Dems because the Obama administration put on the reformer cape. The administration’s use of Race to the Top and I3 grants to push ideology over enforcement solidified that identity.

This is an unfortunate situation.

Saying you’re pro-charter doesn’t make you progressive, innovative or a Democrat. Charter schools simply institute changes in governance. It’s what you do with a charter that distinguishes your party lines. Actually, a walk in most charter schools feel like a walk in a traditional public school.

Nevertheless, the ambiguity is what makes reform a hot potato.

Related: State of confusion: Mississippians baffled over upcoming school funding vote

There are simply too many reformers who offend Democratic party principles for reform to be Democratic. The next president doesn’t have to be a loyalist to charter or traditional school. The next president must represent his or her party and find ways to force states to deliver good schools to underserved communities.

Dems must focus on holding states as well as universities If the president won’t put children first, who will? - The Hechinger Report:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, left, speaks as Hillary Rodham Clinton looks on during the CNN Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015, in Las Vegas. Photo: AP Photo/John Locher

Links to PAA charter school webinar and slide show | Parents Across America

Links to PAA charter school webinar and slide show | Parents Across America:

Links to PAA charter school webinar and slide show

Hi Folks- If you missed our Oct. 25 webinar on the Washington Sate Supreme Court ruling that charter school funding in the state is unconstitutional, you can watch the 45-minute video here and review the full slide show presentation here.

Many thanks to panelists Dr. Wayne Au and the League of Women Voters – WA State’s Catherine Ahl for sharing their expertise with our audience. PAA President Dora Taylor moderated the meeting and shared lots of good information as well.

We learned that Washington State’s constitution is somewhat unique in its definition of “common schools” — that is, schools that are governed by elected, representative boards — which made the ruling possible, since charter schools are run by appointed boards who are not accountable to communities.

The court also agreed with plaintiffs Au and others that charter schools take resources away from democratic public schools, which is also unconstitutional in Washington.

Participants were urged to take a look at their states’ constitutions — with legal assistance, if possible — for language that might leverage a challenge to charter schools in their states.

We also talked about the importance of sharing the message underlined by this court ruling: that charter schools undermine democratic public education.

- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/links-paa-charter-school-webinar-slide-show/#sthash.MCVt1QWa.dpuf

1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog

1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog:

1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor

A recently released cyber audit of DESE’s student data system (MOSIS) revealed several weaknesses that MO State Auditor Galloway said placed 1.5 million current and former students’ personal information, such as social security numbers, at cyber risk.

The report noted that the state has “no business reason” for collecting social security numbers.  Galloway takes a strong position on data security. In a statement to KCUR she said, “We need to be proactive to be sure to limit the collection of that data if it’s not necessary and then be proactive in protecting it to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” This is exactly what SB530 (Onder – Dist 2), filed but never passed out of the Senate Education Committee last year, attempted to do.

Other Auditor findings include:

• DESE management has not fully established and documented user account management policies and procedures. User account management includes requesting, establishing, issuing, suspending, modifying, closing, and periodically reviewing user accounts and related user privileges. Multiple DESE users are allowed access to the MOSIS system via shared accounts; however, DESE management does not regularly monitor these accounts to ensure actions taken by account holders are appropriate.
• DESE management has not established a comprehensive data breach response policy, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Education. Without a comprehensive data breach response policy, management may not be sufficiently equipped to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a breach, increasing the risk of potential harm to affected individuals

Galloway cited these deficiencies, despite fact that the State Board did pass the rule 5 CSR 20-700.100 Statewide Longitudinal Data System on March 2nd this year requiring:

2) Data Access and Management Policies.
(A) The department adheres to the confidentiality requirements of both federal and state laws including, but not limited to, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and the National School Lunch Act. These policies include:

1. Defining privacy, confidentiality, personally identifiable information, disclosure, access, and confidential data; and1.5 million current and former student SSNs at risk says MO Auditor » Missouri Education Watchdog:

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal:

How “all kids” is the current LAUSD?

Steve Zimmer. Photo by Carla Acevedo-Blumenkrantz

In decrying the recently leaked memo outlining a plan to create more high-quality public charter schools in our city, LAUSD School Board President Steve Zimmer said: “This is not an all-kids plan or an all-kids strategy…it’s very explicitly a some-kids strategy, a strategy that some kids will have a better education at a publicly-funded school…[t]he conversation should be better public education options and quality public schools for all kids, not some kids.”

I agree with that last part. And yet I have a hard time seeing how LAUSD itself has engaged in an “all-kids” strategy. I’m confused as to how policies that have led to only twenty-six percent of high school students being on track to graduate can possibly be called part of an “all-kids” strategy. It seems to me that this is a “quarter-of-kids” strategy. That’s not to say that Zimmer and others don’t believe that all kids should succeed; on the contrary, I believe that they do. But by denouncing various school innovation plans as a “some kids” strategy and touting the district’s as an “all kids” one, Zimmer is not only unnecessarily incendiary, but he also invites scrutiny of how “all kids” this district has been of late.

Although local media criticism of LAUSD is not unusual, it’s not every day that someone with the stature of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez is compelled to say of this district: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” And yet that’s exactly what he said earlier this week when writing about the district’s asinine decision to rehire an attorney who, only months prior, had not only argued in court that a “13-year-old student was partly to blame for her 28-year-old math teacher’s sexual abuse of her,” but also said on the radio that it was more dangerous for her to cross a street than to have sex with a teacher. Only when that comment came to light did the district apologize. It was bad enough that this argument was used in court (which it can no longer be, thanks to a law passed in response to LAUSD’s tactics), but then to rehire the lawyer? I highly doubt that the student tragically implicated in this situation believes that this is part of an all kids strategy.

Sadly, it’s not the district’s response to these cases, but the fact that they exist in the first place that’s the most difficult to stomach. The year before I started teaching at Markham Middle School in Watts, an assistant principal was arrested and charged with five counts of forcible lewd acts on a child. That’s horrible enough, but here’s the kicker: he was moved to Markham “even though police had alerted the district that they suspected [he] had had sex with a minor.” To echo Lopez: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Have things improved since his arrest in 2008? Unfortunately not. Last year, the district paid over $139 million to settle the case of an educator who was convicted of committing 23 counts of lewd conduct upon a child. What is appalling about these cases is not only that they happened, but that they could have been prevented. In the case of the assistant principal at Markham, the district had been alerted to his actions; in the more recent case, the conduct had been occurring since at least 1996. Regrettably, the students affected were not part of an all kids strategy.

Horrific incidents like these unfortunately detract from the work of the district’s incredibly caring and hard-working teachers who labor day in and day out on behalf of the district’s nearly 700,000 students. So what is the district doing to ensure that all kids in LA have access to high-quality teachers and that all teachers in LA are adequately supported in their work? Instead of standing with California students who brought a landmark civil rights case aimed at reforming anachronistic, regressive policies that actually prevented all kids from having effective teachers (the judge went so far as to say the evidence “shocks the conscience”), some district leaders condemned the case and even attempted to vilify these kids. Kids who, it is worth noting, How “all kids” is the current LAUSD? | Opinion | Jewish Journal:

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?:

Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law

Having spent in excess of $1 million on his initial run for public office, political newcomer and Greenwich native Luke Bronin is expecting the voters of Hartford to make him their next mayor on Election Day – Tuesday, November 3, 2015.

But as Bronin’s campaign finance reports indicate, in addition to running the most expensive mayoral campaign in Connecticut history, Bronin “wins the award” for collecting more money from state lobbyists than any other mayoral candidate in Connecticut.

In a truly unprecedented maneuver, as of nearly a month ago, Governor Malloy protégée Luke Bronin had already collected more than $25,000 from a total of about 80 registered state lobbyists.

Bronin’s list of lobbyist fans include John Rowland’s former chief of staff, Rowland’s former campaign manager and a so-called “social justice” lobbyist who has become one of Dannel Malloy’s biggest apologists.  As of the last campaign finance report, almost every major lobbyist had donated to Bronin with a number of them donating more than once.

Bronin’s strategy of collecting campaign donations from those who are paid to influence public policy will come with a price.

Connecticut State Law requires all political candidates to identify any contributor who is a lobbyist, lobbyist spouse or dependent child of a lobbyist on their campaign finance reports.  However, of the nearly 80 donations Bronin has received from lobbyists or their families, only 17 (or about 20 percent) are properly identified.

The utter failure to identify contributions received from lobbyists will undoubtedly generate Luke Bronin hauls in Lobbyist cash, generates multiple violations of CT Campaign Finance Law - Wait What?:

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com:

Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers”

The president came out last weekend against the overemphasis on testing, breaking with 20 years of precedent

The activist/performance art group The Yes Men’s signature technique is to impersonate corporations or governmental agencies. They’ve posed as representatives from Dow Chemical, offering to liquidate their company and distribute funds to victims of the Bhopal disaster, or as officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announcing the reopening of public housing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Through these hoaxes, the Yes Men publicize destructive policies and picture a world where they can be reversed.

That’s what I had in mind when I read that the Obama Administration called for a cap on standardized testing of no more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time, acknowledging their own role in endorsing a culture of constant test-taking. I simply assumed that The Yes Men had struck again, spoofing the Administration and calling attention to their education reform policies.

But that wasn’t an impersonator but President Obama himself saying that “learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” and that it “takes the joy out of teaching and learning.”

Rigorous testing was so fundamental to the Obama Administration’s education reform agenda that this repudiation resembles shutting down Obamacare or the EPA’s carbon pollution regulations. Leveraged by Education Department policies like Race to the Top, which trickled out conditional funding, more states evaluated its teachers by factoring in test scores, and incorporated additional tests through the new Common Core standards.

As a result, teachers spent more and more of their school days preparing their classes to fill out Scan-Tron sheets, and less time on more rewarding pursuits like teaching critical thinking or triggering long-lasting interests. According to a survey of 66 districts by the Council on the Great City Schools, students now take an average of 112 required standardized tests between kindergarten and 12th grade, or over eight and a half every year.

Many of these tests fulfill federal mandates, from Race to the Top to the No Child Left Behind to Common Core. Eighth-grade students exceeded the Administration’s proposed limit of 2 percent of instruction time per year just on testing, to say nothing of the time spent teaching to the tests.

Most important, none of this testing appears to achieve the goal of creating more knowledgeable students. The Council on the Great City Schools study found no relationship between testing and reading and math scores on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) between fourth and eighth grade. The tests do more to help administrators’ claim that they are demanding “strong standards” than they do to actually instruct children.

What’s the other byproduct of excessive testing? Financial windfalls for the four private companies who create and administer the tests: Pearson, Educational Testing Service, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill. These four firms have spentover $20 million lobbying the government between 2009 and 2014, insisting on more testing to boost their profits, according to the Center for Media and Democracy think tank. The testing sector generates $2 billion in annual revenue, so the return on investment is excellent.

Companies like Pearson work the states for lucrative testing contracts as well, but the tone at the top – mandating multiple overlapping assessments to determine student instruction levels and weed out bad teachers – provided a boost to their bottom lines. The testing trend was in part a money grab.

The Obama Administration finally admitting that their zeal for testing went too far breaks with 20 years of precedent, including nearly seven years’ worth of their own actions. Part of this is the backlash to Common Core from both the left and the right. Parents initiated the growing “opt-out movement,” where students choose not to Obama’s stunning reversal on standardized testing: Why his latest comments could spell doom for “reformers” - Salon.com:

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox:

These are the states that really have the best schools in the US

Texas and Florida, not usually renowned for quality education, turn out to be educational powerhouses once you adjust for student demographics.

A new report from the Urban Institute looked at how students from each state compare with similar students in other states on fourth- and eighth-grade tests in reading and math. The researcher, senior fellow Matt Chingos, adjusted states' scores based on a variety of factors, including race, ethnicity, the share of students still learning English, and the share of students living in poverty.

Plenty of factors other than a state's school system affect how students perform on standardized tests. Students in Massachusetts test better than students in Mississippi, but Mississippi also has more students of color and more students living in poverty.

Using Chingos's adjusted scores, Massachusetts still looks very good. Texas and Florida look much better. And Utah, which is about average based on test scores alone, slides nearly to the bottom when adjusted for demographics:

(Urban Institute)

Good news: American schools really are getting better

Test scores have climbed only slightly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the standardized test known as the NAEP or the "nation's report card," since 2003. But that's actually very good news.

There are more nonwhite students and more poor students in public schools than there were 12 years ago. If everything else had remained constant, test scores should have fallen based on the demographic changes.

Instead, nearly every state improved more than would have been expected, adjusted for demographics. And once you make those adjustments, some states have taken dramaticThese are the states that really have the best schools in the US - Vox: