re: Mississippi has the top 4th and 8th grade test scores in the nation

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The blue line tells the true tale.

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Here is your best explanation of why you need "adjusted" scores. Article

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So, a bunch of free points. The blue line tells the true tale.

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The startling adjustments to the 2024 NAEP were produced by the left-leaning Urban Institute, which has long applied statistical controls to scores in an attempt to develop a more precise understanding of how well schools are teaching children.

At the heart of the effort is an acknowledgment that student demographics are not evenly sorted across state borders. Black students live in disproportionate numbers across the Deep South, while English language learners are much more likely to be found near the Mexican border. Perhaps most prominently, rates of child poverty are much worse below the Mason-Dixon line than above. Higher or lower concentrations of these student groups, which have all historically posted lower NAEP scores, can heavily sway states’ performance in ways that may not accurately represent the quality of their schools and teachers, said Matthew Chingos, Urban’s vice president for education.

Adjusting for demographic traits produces “more of an apples-to-apples comparison” between different parts of the country, he added.

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…“If you want to go to a random state, ask a fourth-grader a math question, and have the highest chance of them getting it right, you’ll probably be fine going to the place with the most white, high-income kids,” Chingos said. “But if you want to randomly place a kid in the state where he’ll learn the most, then this list is a better approximation of that.”

… To reach that approximation, Chingos and co-author Kristin Blagg used NAEP’s national data to compare test takers in each state directly against those of the same age, gender, race, socioeconomic background, special education status, and English language learner designation. These calculations effectively simulate a world in which Hispanic students, for example, are as plentiful in Maine as in Arizona.

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