With the Every Student Succeeds Act shaping state curriculums and students getting closer to the end of their summer breaks, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems as well as accompanying videos.
In order to determine the best school systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 25 key measures of quality and safety. The dataset ranges from pupil-teacher ratio to the dropout rate to median standardized-test scores.
States with the Best School Systems States with the Worst School Systems
| States with the Best School Systems | States with the Worst School Systems | |||
| 1 | Massachusetts | 42 | West Virginia | |
| 2 | New Jersey | 43 | Oregon | |
| 3 | Connecticut | 44 | Alabama | |
| 4 | New Hampshire | 45 | Mississippi | |
| 5 | Vermont | 46 | Nevada | |
| 6 | Virginia | 47 | Arizona | |
| 7 | Minnesota | 48 | Alaska | |
| 8 | Maryland | 49 | District of Columbia | |
| 9 | Wisconsin | 50 | Louisiana | |
| 10 | Colorado | 51 | New Mexico | |
Best vs. Worst
Iowa has the lowest dropout rate, 8.7 percent, which is 3.5 times lower than in the District of Columbia, the highest at 30.8 percent.
Vermont has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio, 10.54, which is 2.2 times lower than in California, the highest at 23.63.
Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin share the highest median SAT score, 613.33, which is 1.5 times higher than in the District of Columbia, the lowest at 396.67.
The District of Columbia has the lowest share of high school students who were bullied online, 8.90 percent, which is 2.4 times lower than in Louisiana, the highest at 21.20 percent.
To view the full report and your state or the District’s rank, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-the-best-schools/5335/