In "U.S. Students from Educated Families Lag in International Tests," Hanushek, Peterson, and Woessman report on a study they did that looked at how well 15-year-olds did on math tests in different states and countries. We hear about that kind of thing all the time. What's different here is that they stratify by parental education. Regardless of education of parents, Korea does best. For well-educated parents, Massachusetts is number 6, between the Netherlands and Germany. For poorly-educated parents, Texas is number 7, between Estonia and Finland. (Oddly enough, they are symmetric in their rankings: for highly-educated, Texas is number 18, between Slovakia and Washington State, and Massachusetts is number 19, between Minnesota/Denmark and Kansas/UK.) Texas's performance is particularly important because the numbers are not adjusted for race, a key variable in explaining performance.
Somebody might make use of the difference in relative performance of high- vs. low-education families to think about who controls the governments in different places. It seems rich people run things in Massachusetts, poor people in Texas. One might think that the results imply Massachusetts people care less about equality than Texans, too. That seems odd in view of the political alignments, but less so if you think of Massachusetts as technocratic and Texas as populist.
Regardless of the deep implications, given the amount I'll be paying for rent in Belmont, Mass. next year while on sabbatical ($4,100/month— which is actually a good deal in two senses), I'm happy to hear these results.
(Hat tip: MM)