The fact that Northeast states do so well also makes me wonder if their educations systems are that much better or the test has inherent cultural bias. This has historically been an issue with standardized tests. Has it gotten better?
Given that all public school students are required to take this test, it would be good to break down the results by total number of students. There might be just as many high-scoring kids relative to the total student population in Hawaii as in Massachusetts. Maybe not, but breaking that data down could be meaningful.