Top performing cities on NAEP test have the least poverty — but some poor cities do surprisingly well

This article also appeared here.

This article also appeared here.

Do cities with less poverty test better? Yes, but the correlation is not as tight as you might guess, according to 2013 test scores released Dec. 18, 2013. I put together a spreadsheet looking at the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced priced lunch in each of the 21 urban school districts that volunteered to be part of a National Center for Education Statistics assessment (known as NAEP TUDA). I then compared these poverty rankings to each city’s standing in fourth grade math. My original data came from here and here.

Charlotte, NC with the smallest percentage of poverty on the list (only 56%) has the top math score — as you might expect. But it’s interesting that Jefferson County, KY, which has the 4th smallest percentage of poverty (65% low income students) ranked 11th in math. You would have expected it to post a higher math score. Similarly, Atlanta and Washington DC post lower math scores than their poverty rankings would suggest. Conversely, Boston has higher poverty than most of the other cities. Yet its fourth graders posted the 5th highest score in math.

Here is my table….

City 4th Grade Math 4th Grade Math Ranking % Poverty Least Poverty Ranking(Most poverty = 21)
Charlotte 247 1 56 1
Hillsborough County, FL 243 3 58 2
Austin 245 2 62 3
Jefferson County KY 234 11 65 4
San Diego 241 4 66 5
Atlanta 233 12 73 6
Miami-Dade 237 6 74 7
Washington DC 229 14 76 8
Albuquerque 235 9 77 9
New York City 236 8 79 10
Houston 236 7 83 11
Milwaukee 221 18 83 12
Chicago 231 13 84 13
Los Angeles 228 15 84 14
Boston 237 5 85 15
Baltimore 223 17 87 16
Detroit 204 21 88 17
Fresno 220 19 91 18
Dallas 234 10 94 19
Philadelphia 223 16 94 20
Cleveland 216 20 100 21

Related stories:

Low-income inner-city achievement gap starts to close, test scores of urban school districts improve faster than nation over past 10 years, Washington D.C. stands out


POSTED BY Jill Barshay ON December 18, 2013

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