The rejection — some might say abject failure — of the national No Child Left Behind Act in 2015 reaffirmed the authority of individual states to set their own goals and standards for student achievement.

Fair enough. Education isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and what works at an inner-city school in New Orleans won’t necessary succeed in an upscale Seattle suburb or a small town in Appalachia. States and individual school districts decide what’s best for their students and what standards those students must meet to advance and graduate.

But students who wish to go on to college must clear another, far less subjective hurdle — the ACT or SAT exam. In a world where truth has become slippery and every fact seems to have an alternative, the questions on these college entrance exams have right answers and wrong answers. Any measurement of a state’s and/or community’s success in educating its children must consider their performance on these standardized tests.

Minnesota is doing very, very well.

Of the 19 states where at least 90 percent of 2018’s high school graduates took the ACT, Minnesota ranks No. 1 with an average score of 21.3 out of 36.

To fully grasp how good that score is, consider the average score in Iowa, another perennial ACT powerhouse with a strong reputation for its public schools system. In the Hawkeye State, the average ACT score for last spring’s graduates was 21.8. That’s higher than Minnesota’s average score, but just barely — and only 68 percent of Iowa’s graduates took the exam.

In Minnesota, 99 percent of graduates took the ACT. Districts statewide administer the exam free of charge in students’ junior year as part of the state’s regular battery of standardized tests, so almost everyone takes it, including students who don’t plan to attend a four-year college or university.

So, to put the matter in sports terms, Iowa squeaked out a victory by playing only its high-scoring players, while Minnesota played everyone on its roster, including students who have learning disabilities, live below the poverty line or speak English as a second language.

We can think of no better proof that Minnesota has one of the nation’s best educational systems.

Granted, it would be easier and cheaper to let kids opt out of the ACT, but we applaud the policy of having all students take a national exam in math, language and science. For some students, this test is a much-needed reality check, a notice that they have work to do before they set foot on a college campus. On the other hand, we suspect that some students are pleasantly surprised when they receive their scores. Kids surrounded by high-achieving peers can underestimate their own abilities until they see hard data that says, “You’re smart, too!”

Speaking of smart, 10 as-yet-unidentified Rochester students earned perfect scores of 36 on the ACT exam in the past 12 months, and the average score for the district’s students was 22.3, well above the state and national averages.

Those numbers tell us that great things are happening in our schools — and we can state with full confidence that those numbers don’t lie.

— Rochester Post Bulletin