2017 NAEP Data

Today, scores were released on the 2017 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), an exam that is administered to randomly selected students in states and large cities around the US.

Students in Charlotte, NC scored the highest while students in Detroit scored the lowest.  Without considering income differences, the raw scores are essentially useless as measures of school quality across cities.

In Charlotte, the typical student has parents who earn $57k a year.  In Detroit, the typical student has parents who earn $27k a year.  So, it isn't at all surprising that Charlotte would score higher than Detroit, even if we knew nothing about the school quality in these cities.  Unfortunately, much of the coverage of the NAEP scores leaves out this context.

Below are 2017 NAEP scores plotted against median income for parents of students attending school in the district.  Differences in median income explain 61% of the variation in scores on the NAEP.

Clicking through the first four tabs of the Tableau graphic above shows that this relationship holds true within race as well.

Income is also important to consider when looking at racial gaps.  An AJC article summarizing findings from the release suggested that Atlanta had a particularly large black/white gap in scores.  This is true.  It is also true that Atlanta has a particularly wide black/white gap in income.  In fact, it is the largest in the country and no city other than DC even comes close.  The typical white student in Atlanta Public Schools has parents who earn $167k.  The typical black student in Atlanta has parents who earn $24k.  So the racial gap in parent income is $143k.  No where else in the country has a gap so large.  The graph below plots this income gap along with the score gap for all cities.

Seventy-four percent of the black/white gap in average district scores is explained by the size of the income gap in the district.  Notably, the score gap in Atlanta is less than would be expected based on the income gap.

Black students in Atlanta actually score better than would be expected based on their parents' income.  Their scores are comparable to black students in Denver whose parents earn about $11k more.

White students in Atlanta score the second highest of any city in the country (DC is slightly ahead) The score is slightly below what would be expected based on their income; however, it is tough to draw many conclusions since most cities are no where close in income profile. 

The income data used above came from the Stanford Education Data Archive and is based on an American Community Survey supplement which reports data for public school and private school children.