We compared 2025 and 2026 STAAR results for more than 8,000 Texas schools. Reading, math, and social studies each moved one to two points. Science moved seven, in both tested grades, and at a majority of schools. Here is where the gains landed, which districts moved most, and the caveat on science.
Arthur Chen
New Georgia Milestones results show gains in nearly every grade, with fourth, fifth, sixth and Algebra hitting all-time highs. Eighth grade math slipped to 46% proficient, and that's the grade that signals whether kids are ready for high school math.
Mary Johnson
We ranked every public high school in Georgia by its state-test proficiency. A Gwinnett magnet tops the list at 99.6%, but the more interesting story is what sits behind it: a wall of North Atlanta suburbs, and a handful of standouts far outside the metro.
Kate Carter
North Carolina released its 2025 school report cards. ACT scores jumped 13% and more students took AP courses, but the letter grades tell a harder story: more schools landed a D or F than an A or B. Here is the statewide breakdown, plus a look at the Triad.
Mary Johnson
A 9 out of 10 or a clean A feels like a verdict on a school's quality. In practice, most ratings built on raw proficiency track family income more than anything a school does. Here is what the big ratings actually measure, and the three numbers to read together instead.
Arthur Chen
The state test report comes home in the fall and most parents have no idea what to do with it. Here is what proficient actually means, why one year is not a verdict, and the difference between a score and a growth measure that schools rarely explain well.
Mary Johnson
Northern Virginia holds some of the strongest public high schools in the country, led by a selective magnet that passes the state test at essentially 100 percent. Here is how the comprehensive high schools of Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, and Prince William counties rank on Virginia’s SOL pass rates.
Arthur Chen
Across the Charlotte metro, public high school performance swings from the low 40s to the high 80s on North Carolina’s grade-level proficiency measure, and the strongest results sit in the Union County and north-Mecklenburg suburbs rather than inside the city. Here is how the suburbs rank.
Kate Carter
The National Blue Ribbon banner hangs in school lobbies across the country, but few parents know what it takes to earn one or what it actually signals. Here is how the U.S. Department of Education picks them, the two ways a school can qualify, and what the honor does and does not tell you.
Arthur Chen
A 15-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio does not mean 15 kids in your child's class. Here is the difference between ratio and class size, what the research on the Tennessee STAR study actually found, and when the number on a school profile is misleading you.
Arthur Chen
The Houston metro is one of the largest and most sprawling in the United States, and its suburban school landscape reflects that scale. Harris County alone has 1,171 public schools. Add Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria, and Galveston counties and the picture grows significantly more complex. For families relocating to the Houston area or moving within it, school quality varies enough between suburbs, and between schools within the same suburb, that the decision of where to live shapes the educational experience as much as any other factor.
Kate Carter
