Um, to counter one example... Maryland actually tops US News and World Reports' high school rankings overall. [1] Their city public schools were recognized for improvement by the US Department of Education for a number of years. [2] I'm sure there are problematic areas, but it seems bad practice to go after the entire Baltimore public school system over this -- on the whole, my impression is that it seems pretty decent.

The Atlantic article reflected concerns about Midwest research spending. Since the Midwest has states that are both Democrat dominated and Republican dominated in politics, I'm not sure you can actually draw any partisan conclusions from that article.

(There is a political divide on research spending opinion per surveys [3], but even here, most Republicans either support increased scientific research spending, or keeping it at the same levels.)

[1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/... [2] https://www.ed.gov/labor-management-collaboration/conference... [3] http://www.people-press.org/2017/04/24/how-republicans-and-d...