Center for American Progress, January 14, 2016: Lessons From State Performance on NAEP
“However, it is also clear that some states do a far better job of educating low-income students than others. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, there is a massive gap between the states with the highest-performing low-income students and the states with the lowest. For example, in eighth-grade math, students from a low-income background in Massachusetts scored 17 points higher than low-income students in Mississippi. Or think of it this way: Low-income students in Massachusetts are a full grade and a half ahead of low-income students in Mississippi in eighth-grade mathematics.”