Displays for Comparing a Given State to Many Others

This article presents a graphical display useful for comparing a chosen individual (e.g., a single state in a state-by-state survey) with the others in the population. The display immediately shows the ranking of the individual in the population, which other individuals are "significantly" higher than the reference, and which are "significantly" lower. The confidence bars are optimized for making comparisons with the reference individual. We illustrate this display with examples from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).