The hidden truth is that family income is the greatest determiner of test scores for young people, from HS tests to SAT to GRE. This has been known for 30 years and no one has done anything. Ralph Nader challenged the SAT folks for being racially biased, and their data indicates that they are income biased. In the US income and race are associated.

Students in schools with little money per pupil, even in wealthy districts, get more under prepared, young teachers than schools in the suburbs. Yes, there is also a race thing. And how come no one in Cincinnati seems to care about income and student performance? Do they blame the poor kids, or do they blame the poor schools?

In a recent analysis of Ohio HS achievement tests there was a race difference until the analysists adjusted for zip code, as a proxy for income. The race issue did not go away, but most of it did.

The simple, and research based, answer is poor people live in cities, and richer people live in the suburbs.

Its interesting that you selected Sycamore to compare Cincy Public against. It tells me you likely know more than you let on- such as that Sycamore is usually the school that pays the highest teacher wages in the state of Ohio (although I heard that they recently fell to #2). The highest wages = a great number of applications for open positions from the most highly qualified teachers year after year. Therefor, Sycamore does extremely well. There are a great deal of other factors in this as well though- parents that care and are involved more, a group that values education more than a group that does not, better learning environment, etc.