This document is a study of standardized tests by sub-group, ranking the states according to scores divided (in turn) by gender, race and ethnicity, location of school, family income, parental education, teacher qualification and experience, limited English proficiency, special education participation rate, and per-pupil spending. The tests examined are the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessments and the 1998 NAEP reading assessments for grades 4 and 8. How much policymakers and the public should rely on standardized tests to determine public policy is an ongoing battle. It is important to acknowledge, as these analyses show, that who a student is and where he or she comes from can be as important, if not more so, than what happens to him or her at school. It is necessary to treat these factors and these differences as obstacles to be overcome, not alibis to be delivered whenever test scores are bad. The analyses in this report provide a new set of rankings to show which states are overcoming obstacles and which are delivering alibis. (Contains 22 tables.) (SLD)