Educators from the teacher, administrator, and school-board associations of the states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon joined with the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory to highlight the achievements of the public schools in preparing children and youth for a successful and fulfilling life, and to note the significant participation of the associations in these endeavors. This summary is a way of sharing the practices deemed effective by the associations, and of offering them as resources for others. All five states can be justifiably proud of their students' academic achievement. On a variety of measures, students from the Northwest score as high, and usually higher, than their peers at the national level. This pattern has held and recently been strengthened, despite the challenges of persistent childhood poverty, rapidly increasing numbers of students whose first language is not English, and the mainstreaming of special-education students. The report presents the results of an international benchmarking study whose purpose is to provide useful student-achievement information about the performance of states relative to other countries. It broadly compares state 8th-grade mathematics and science performance for each of 44 states and jurisdictions participating in the National Assessment of Educational Progress with that of 41 nations who participated in the third International Mathematics and Science Study. (Contains 15 references.) (DFR)