Here's The Best School District In Florida: Report

A new report has ranked the best school districts in Florida, and the answer may surprise you. The website 24/7 Wall St., a Delaware corporation that publishes financial news and commentary, sifted through various school data to determine the best school district in every state.

In Florida, the St. Johns County School District topped the list. The school district has 35,268 students and spends $8,479 per student, the analysis found. The high school graduation rate is 88.6 percent and 42.5percent of adults have a bachelor's degree.

The company evaluated the districts by creating an index based on data in the following categories:

• Child poverty
• Spending per student
• Graduation rate
• Teachers per student
• Percentage of adults with a bachelor's degree
• Preschool enrollment
• Advanced Placement enrollment

Several school districts in the U.S. spend more than $50,000 per student on education each year, 24/7 Wall St. said, but others spend less than $2,000 per student.

"That difference in spending contributes to major disparities in student outcomes throughout the country," the authors wrote. "The majority of a school's budget is spent on staff and teacher salaries. A school that is able to attract the best teachers can give their students a major advantage."

Indeed, wealthier areas often reap those rewards.

Local sources, including property taxes, account for about 44 percent of all school funding in the U.S. This means most of the best school districts are located in affluent counties where the majority of households earn more than double that of a typical American household.

The nationwide rankings report published on Monday follows a January report from the same site that found Florida ranked 29th in the country for best schools.

Here's a breakdown of all Florida schools, according to 24/7 Wall St.:

• High school graduation rate: 80.7 percent (14th lowest)
• Public school spending: $9,737 per pupil (11th lowest)
• 8th grade NAEP proficiency: 26.1 percent (math) 30.3 percent (reading)
• Adults with at least a bachelor's degree: 28.6 percent (19th lowest)
• Adults 25-64 with incomes at or above national median: 42.9 percent (3rd lowest)

Florida’s public schools receive some of the lowest funding of any state school system in the country. The state allocates only 2.7 percent of its taxable resources to school funding, well below the 3.3 percent average funding across all state school systems. Partially as a result, annual per-pupil education spending is only $9,737, or about $2,800 less than the typical spending nationwide, the report said.

Despite potentially inadequate funding, by some measures, Florida’s school system is relatively successful. For example, Florida has the fifth highest number of high AP test scores of any state relative to the number of 11th and 12th grade students in the state. Improving markedly in recent years, between 2000 and 2014, the number of high advanced placement test scores per 100 juniors and seniors climbed by 28.2, the third greatest improvement of any state, the authors wrote.

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