It’s an old question in the education world, and one that’s received renewed attention since the release of a study by noted researcher Sean Reardon. A Stanford professor who focuses on poverty and inequality in education, Reardon burrowed down into testing data for 11,000 school districts to determine which ones helped students achieve the most growth between third and eighth grade. He found that the richest, whitest areas actually weren’t the best. The highest-flying district, in fact, was the Chicago Public Schools, where pupils’ test scores rose at four times the average rate (two-thirds of a grade level per year, compared with one-sixth) of schools across the country.

Chicago is not often listed among the Westons and Wellesleys of the world. Thirty years ago, then–Education Secretary Bill Bennett dubbed its school system the worst in the country. Unsurprisingly, Reardon's study was well received by local media. Tennessee, which also received praise, won some good headlines as well, and a few outlets compared results for their local districts with the top performers.

Nationally, however, the commentary around Reardon’s research focused on his central premise: Rich communities that produce well-prepared third-graders don’t necessarily shepherd them to greater progress in the years that follow.

Experts may not all agree that Chicago is the highest-achieving urban district in the United States (some, like David Osborne in The 74, differ strongly on this point) but any graduate student in education could observe that schools tend to reflect the demographics of the communities they serve. Because of this, metrics like academic growth — tracking year-over-year jumps in standardized test scores, rather than simply looking at the scores themselves — give a fuller sense of school quality.

Read the full about how poorer schools can often work wonders by Kevin Mahnken at The 74.