Education Week - September 9, 2015 - 17

In Louisiana, our reforms have given
thousands of children the shot at a
better education and a better life."

Who Has Bragging Rights?
An apples-to-apples comparison of
educational outcomes under the nine
governors or former governors now
running for president doesn't show
any standout stars, according to an
analysis by the Education Week Research Center.
Most of those candidates-whether
Republican or Democratic-didn't
see huge spikes in selected math
and reading scores on the National
Assessment of Educational Progress,
or NAEP, the nation's report card,
during their tenure in office. Neither
did they see major improvements in
graduation rates under the AFGR
metric. (The analysis doesn't include
graduation rates before 2003.)
One potential exception may be
Bush, who led Florida from 1999
to 2007. That period corresponded
with gains in 4th grade reading on

NAEP. Scores jumped from 206 on a
500-point scale in 1998, the year before Bush took office, to 226 in 2009,
when he'd been out of office for two
years. (Nationally, scores on the same
exam rose from 213 to 220 during the
same period.) And when it comes to
closing the achievement gap, Florida
made some substantial progress with
respect to reading and math gaps in
4th grade, between 2003 and 2013.
Nationally, the black-white gap in
grade 4 reading closed by 4 points
compared to 8 points in Florida. In
grade 4 math, the nation narrowed
the black-white gap by 1 point compared with 5 points in Florida.
But there's no way to say for sure
that Bush's leadership-and the policies he put in place, such as ending
social promotion for some students-
were solely responsible for those
gains, said Sterling Lloyd, the senior
research analyst for the Education
Week Research Center.
It's possible that they made a difference, he said, but it's important to
take other factors-such as demo-

graphic changes-into consideration.
And the jump for students overall
wasn't nearly as impressive for 8th
grade reading.
On the Democratic side, Martin
O'Malley, the former governor of
Maryland, has cited the Old Line
State's number one overall grade for
several years in Education Week's
annual Quality Counts report as
evidence of his strong stewardship of
the state's K-12 system. It's true that
Maryland was ranked number one
for five years running, 2009 through
2013. But it's hard to attribute that
track record to any one policy, or policymaker, Lloyd said. And Education
Week recently changed its methodology, pushing Maryland down to third
place nationally in the 2015 report.

watch, said Patrick McGuinn, an associate professor of political science
at Drew University in Madison, N.J.,
who has studied the role education
plays in elections.
For one thing, the strategy gives
governors a chance to highlight their
state executive experience-a quality
that sets them apart from candidates
who have served in, say, the U.S. Senate or the business community.
And a bump in test scores is also
an easy-to-grasp sound bite that can
help paint a candidate as a leader
who gets results, McGuinn said.
"Voters like to hear hard facts. This
is empirical, it's data, it sounds great,
it sounds positive, it sounds like a
real result," McGuinn said.
Governors have a myriad of student achievement results to choose

Typical Fare
A few headshaking education researchers aren't likely to stop governors-turned-presidential-candidates
from trumpeting student achievement gains that occurred under their

ON THEIR WATCH

MATHEMATICS
222

224

234

237

239

239

240

241

Jeb Bush (R-Fla.)

-

-

234

239

242

242

240

242

Lincoln Chafee (I/D-R.I.)

-

224

230

233

236

239

242

241

Chris Christie (R-N.J.)

-

-

239

244

249

247

248

247

Bobby Jindal (R-La.)

-

218

226

230

230

229

231

231

John Kasich (R-Ohio)

-

230

238

242

245

244

244

246

Martin O'Malley (D-Md.)

-

222

233

238

240

244

247

245

George Pataki (R-N.Y.)

-

225

236

238

243

241

238

240

Rick Perry (R-Texas)

-

231

237

242

242

240

241

242

Scott Walker (R-Wisc.)

-

‡

237

241

244

244

245

245

National Average >

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

269

272

276

278

280

282

283

284

Jeb Bush (R-Fla.)

-

-

271

274

277

279

278

281

Lincoln Chafee (I/D-R.I.)

-

269

272

272

275

278

283

284

Chris Christie (R-N.J.)

-

-

281

284

289

293

294

296

Bobby Jindal (R-La.)

-

259

266

268

272

272

273

273

John Kasich (R-Ohio)

-

281

282

283

285

286

289

290

Martin O'Malley (D-Md.)

-

272

278

278

286

288

288

287

George Pataki (R-N.Y.)

-

271

280

280

280

283

280

282

Rick Perry (R-Texas)

-

273

277

281

286

287

290

288

Scott Walker (R-Wisc.)

-

‡

284

285

286

288

289

289

Governor/State

KEY

n

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

D+

D+

C-

C-

Jeb Bush (R-Fla.)

C

C+

C-

C

Lincoln Chafee (I/D-R.I.)

D

D

C-

D+

Chris Christie (R-N.J.)

B-

B-

B

B-

Bobby Jindal (R-La.)

D-

F

F

D-

John Kasich (R-Ohio)

C-

C-

C-

C-

Martin O'Malley (D-Md.)

B

B-

B

B

George Pataki (R-N.Y.)

C-

C

C-

C-

Rick Perry (R-Texas)

C

C-

C-

C-

Scott Walker (R-Wisc.)

C-

D+

C-

C-

National Average >

Education Week Librarian Holly Peele contributed to
the reporting of this story, and compiled the data and
data visualization.

Governor's tenure

- Not available
‡

K-12 ACHIEVEMENT INDEX
(Quality Counts)

8th
Grade
Governor/State

4th Grade

National Average >

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Did any states see major improvements in K-12
education during the terms of the nine governors
and former governors now running for president?
An apples-to-apples comparison of selected
indicators doesn't show any big standouts,
according to an analysis by the Education Week
Research Center. The analysis looked at 4th
and 8th grade reading and math scores on the
National Assessment of Educational Progress,
as well as graduation rates as measured by
the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate. It
also looked at state's grades on the Research
Center's Quality Counts K-12 Achievement Index,
which includes 18 indicators aiming to capture
strong academic performance, combined with
improvements over time and a narrowing of the
achievement gap.

8th Grade

Governor/State

from in making their case, everything
from state test scores for a particular
grade to Advanced Placement coursetaking and college graduation rates.
"They get to cherry pick whatever
indicators and facts they get to use,"
McGuinn said.
That's partly why it makes sense
to look beyond any single number-such as a rise in ACT scores or
4th grade math scores-when considering a candidate's record, said
Desimone of the University of Pennsylvania. She urged anyone wanting to understand these governors'
records to "look for the evidence
across a host of different kinds of
tests." If scores have gone up across
the board-and the gains have been
sustained-that could bode well for a
particular policy, she said.

Reporting standards
not met

NOTES: The NAEP Mathematics and Reading
scales range from 0 to 500. Some apparent
differences between estimates may not be
statistically significant.
This analysis used test scores when statelevel NAEP results that allowed testing
accommodations were available. A dash
indicates scores were not available in those years
for assessments in which such accommodations
were allowed, or that the state did not participate
in NAEP for a given year. Empty cells indicate
assessments were not administered in the
specified year.

SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education,
Education Week Research Center.

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