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

Get important education news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox

Email Address

Choose from our newsletters

• Weekly Update
• Future of Learning
• Higher Education
• Early Childhood
• Proof Points

Leave this field empty if you’re human:

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

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn't mean it's free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.