Republican States Have The Best Public Schools In The Country, By A Long Shot

[Anonymous]

In fact, I suspect that the most public schools in Blue States (even in more affluent areas) test badly because the affluent opt out of the system entirely and send their kids to private school. Then they pat themselves on the back because the public schools in their area are equally bad for everyone. In the vast majority of Red State areas, the % of the population that goes to private school is very low. Everyone cares about the quality of the public school system.


Really? I'm from north of the Mason-Dixon line, and when I moved down to Virgina (not Northern Virginia, but the red part of the commonwealth), I was astonished at the number of private schools. I always assumed they were founded as a response to the Brown v Board of Ed decision. The public schools where I grew up were a lot better than the public schools in heartland Virginia.

My good friend had the same experience - moved from NJ to NC in middle school in the late 70s and had already covered everything they were doing in the public schools the year or even two years before. And there were a ton of private Christian schools for the many, many people who didn't want their children in the integrated public schools. Her nieces are in ES there today and the situation is the same.

[Anonymous]

If someone really wants to investigate this, I suppose you could look at the AP and SAT reports from the College Board, and compare how the "red states" did versus the "blue states."

AP Reports with state-by-state breakdown:
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/5th-annual-ap-report-to-the-nation-2009.pdf

SAT Report with state-by-state breakdown:
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/2010-sat-trends.pdf

When I look at the map on page 6 of the AP Report, it sure looks to me like the blue states are putting up much higher AP exam results than the red states. But that's just my gut sense without adding up any numbers.

I'm not planning to tally up any numbers, but if someone else wants to do the work, I'd be interested in seeing the results.

Sam2

[Anonymous]

You also could use the NAEP data to compare states.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.businessinsider.com/shocking-red-states-have-the-best-public-schools-in-the-country-by-a-long-shot-2011-6

From the linked article:

Definition alert: On this blog, a blue state is one that voted for John Kerry in 2004; red states cast their electoral votes for Bush.

Disingenuous Piece of Shit Alert: Why not use the 2008 results?

Anyway, the reason Red States appear to do slightly better in the tally of individual school excellence is that Red States are much better at segregating schools by race and income. Lot easier to get good test results and high IB/AP/etc participation rates when your student body is 99% white and upper middle-class. Blue States actually take things like social justice into consideration.

Just curious--do your children attend public school? If so, in which area?

PP here. Yep. DCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.businessinsider.com/shocking-red-states-have-the-best-public-schools-in-the-country-by-a-long-shot-2011-6

From the linked article:

Definition alert: On this blog, a blue state is one that voted for John Kerry in 2004; red states cast their electoral votes for Bush.

Disingenuous Piece of Shit Alert: Why not use the 2008 results?

Anyway, the reason Red States appear to do slightly better in the tally of individual school excellence is that Red States are much better at segregating schools by race and income. Lot easier to get good test results and high IB/AP/etc participation rates when your student body is 99% white and upper middle-class. Blue States actually take things like social justice into consideration.

Just curious--do your children attend public school? If so, in which area?

PP here. Yep. DCPS

I'm impressed, since so many posters here send their children to private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You also could use the NAEP data to compare states.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/

This is a great website.

[Anonymous]

That's because Blue States have been subsidizing the costs in Red States for years. We've been paying their bills and ours:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1451268