Massachusetts Public Education System Indicators
Click here to download this information in PDF format. Our goal is to increase investment in children – particularly in their education and enrichment from pre-school through high school – to ensure they have a fair chance in life and to create a better future for Massachusetts. The grid below shows where we stand on several indicators of investment in education and student achievement. Explanatory notes and data sources follow.
Notes - Rankings are for the 50 states; the District of Columbia is not included.
- “U.S. Top 10” indicates the value for the 10th ranked state for each indicator.
- “Publicly-funded Pre-K Access” indicates the percentage of 4-year-olds statewide enrolled in either the state-funded pre-K program, federally-funded Head Start program, or publicly funded special education pre-K program.
- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores range from 0 – 500.
- Each Achievement Gap is the average difference in scores on four NAEP assessments (4th and 8th Grade Reading and Math) between the two indicated subgroups of students; the Economic Gap measures the difference between those students who qualify for the free/reduced-price lunch program and those who do not.
- The Overall Gap is the average of the three subgroup gaps.
| Indicator | Data Source | | Publicly-funded Pre-K Access (2007-08) | National Institute for Early Education Research, The State of Preschool 2008: State Preschool Yearbook | | Average Elementary Class Size (2003-04) | National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2008 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 67 | | Average Secondary Class Size (2003-04) | NCES, 2008 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 67 | | Length of K-12 School Year | Education Commission of the States, 2004, Number of Instructional Days/Hours in the School Year | | Total K-12 spending per $1,000 of Personal Income (2004-05) | Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center | | K-12 Share of Total State Spending (2005-06) | NCES, 2008 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 29 | | HS Graduation Rate (2005-06) | NCES, 2008 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 106 | | Event HS Drop-Out Rate (2005-06) | NCES, 2008 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 107 | | College Preparedness (2002) | Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, 2005, Public High School Graduation and College-Readiness Rates: 1991–2002 | | NAEP Scores | NCES, The Nation's Report Card: State Profiles, Massachusetts | | NAEP Achievement Gaps | NCES, NAEP Data Explorer, State Comparisons |
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