Americans cheered the latest release of the test called "the nation's report card," which showed marked long-term gains in math and reading for elementary and junior high students. But the loudest applause is due for the South, as it turns out. Largely missed in the initial hoopla was a startling fact:

Much of the national progress reported for 9- and 13-year-olds was driven by gains in the South. For example, while 9-year-olds in the Northeast gained 10 points in reading achievement (the equivalent of a grade level) over the past 30 years, the South gained 24, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). While reading scores for 13-year-olds barely budged in most of the United States, the South gained 12 points, more than a grade level.

It's vindication for a generation of Southern governors, business groups, and educators who launched the standards movement in education a decade before it was picked up by the rest of the nation.

"Being behind is a great stimulus," says Mark Musick, president of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), who retired this week. "In the 1980s, a number of enlightened leaders in the South were not hesitant to say, 'We're behind, and we have to catch up.' "

The regional results were not immediately obvious. They weren't included in official briefings on the 2004 long-term National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) or its 126-page summary report. Instead, they were buried four levels deep on the NCES website.

For most of American history, the South has remained at rock bottom for education achievement. Writing in 1949, political scientist V.O. Key described Southern states as "often dominated by the least forward-looking elements and always overshadowed by Washington."

But by the late 1970s, a new generation of leaders, who came of age during the civil rights struggles in the South, took on education as their top priority. Governors like Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee, Richard Riley (D) of South Carolina, Bill Clinton (D) of Arkansas, William Winter (D) of Mississippi, James Hunt (D) of North Carolina, and Charles Robb (D) of Virginia poured resources into schools and, in return, promised taxpayers higher student performance.

Governor Alexander launched a master-teacher program, including merit pay for teachers. Governor Riley stumped every corner of the state to win support for a penny increase in the sales tax for schools.

"The link of all of this was our hunger and need for economic growth, so our people would have good jobs," says former Governor Hunt, who now directs a think tank to help governors better promote improvement in schools.

Perhaps more remarkably, Southern governors, Democrats and Republicans, stuck to the program, resisting the reflex of new governors to trash the reforms of their predecessors.

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