With the Every Student Succeeds Act continuing to shape state curriculums and students getting closer to the end of their summer breaks, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on 2019’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems.
In order to determine the best school systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 29 key measures of quality and safety. The data set ranges from pupil-teacher ratio to dropout rate to median standardized-test scores.
Tennessee ranks 34th with a total score of 45.98, a quality score of 36 and a safety rank of 26.
The top 10 states ranked as having the best school systems in the United States, starting with the best, are:
- Massachusetts
- New Jersey
- Connecticut
- Virginia
- Vermont
- Minnesota
- New Hampshire
- Nebraska
- North Dakota
- Wyoming
The 10 states ranked as having the worst school systems, starting with the worst, are:
- Alaska
- Nevada
- Oregon
- District of Columbia
- Alabama
- West Virginia
- Mississippi
- Arizona
- Louisiana
- New Mexico
Additional findings from the study:
- Iowa has the lowest dropout rate at 9%. Compare to New Mexico, the highest at 28.9%.
- Vermont has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio, 10.80; Arizona, the highest at 23.29.
- Louisiana has the highest share of high school students who reported being threatened/injured with a weapon on school property, at 12.80 percent. The state also has the highest percentate who were bullied online at 21.2%.
To view the full report, visit wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/.
