2020’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems

Parents can send their children to the public schools designated for their home address, or they may have other options within the public school system such as to enroll their children in charter schools or to apply for enrollment in other public schools within or across districts.

By early April, an astonishing 1.5 billion young people were staying home as part of broader shutdowns to protect people from the novel coronavirus. Because children so rarely develop severe symptoms, experts have cautioned that open schools might pose a much greater risk to teachers, family members, and the wider community than to students themselves. As you are making decisions about your child(ren) returning to school, it is important to consider the full spectrum of risks involved in both in-person and virtual learning options.

With in-person learning this fall hinging on how well states handle the COVID-19 pandemic, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2020's States with the Best & Worst School Systems.

In order to determine the best school systems in America, they compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 33 key measures of quality and safety. The data set ranges from pupil-teacher ratio and dropout rate to median standardized-test scores and school closures due to COVID-19.

Best vs. Worst

• Iowa has the lowest dropout rate, 8.60 percent, which is 3.7 times lower than in the District of Columbia, the highest at 31.50 percent.
• Vermont has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio, 10.50, which is 2.2 times lower than in Arizona, the highest at 23.53.
• Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Vermont have the lowest share of high school students who reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property, 4.80 percent, which is 2.7 times lower than in Louisiana, the highest at 12.80 percent.
• 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.

Q & A with WalletHub

Does variation in per-pupil spending explain most of the variation in school quality?

“It explains very little variation because high spending localities are expensive places and have very complex urban populations,” said Paul Hill, PhD, University of Washington. “But money can matter. Very high spending places in less challenging environments often have great schools, e.g. new trier il. Cities like DC and NYC need high spending but their schools would be a lot better if there were less regulation and less union featherbedding.”

“Variation pupil spending explains some, but not all, of the variance in school quality,” said Victoria E. Rankin, PhD, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “Other factors, for example, include teacher quality, cultural competence, and classroom size.”

“Research demonstrates that per-pupil spending creates variations in school quality, particularly given our country’s history of denying students of color access to education and accumulation of funding disparities over time,” said Nicole Nguyen, PhD, University of Illinois, Chicago.

As a result of COVID-19, education has changed dramatically. What are the biggest educational challenges that have emerged and how can they be overcome? Will the educational system undertake a decisive long-term shift towards e-learning?

“My biggest challenge has been the fear of technology and the building of online relationships with students,” said Belinda Eggen, PhD, Mars Hill University. “Trial and error, plus in-service have helped me the most. I have always thought online to be the future of education, and that has proven to be so. “

“The COVID-19 crisis has shined a powerful light on the inequities among schools and the families whose children attend those schools particularly when it comes to technology,” said Karen Menke Paciorek, PhD, Eastern Michigan University. “In many states funding has not increased, in fact, it has decreased in the past decade. Costs have not decreased but have increased. School administrators have scrambled to provide access to computers and Wi-Fi for all of the children in their school, but still, all children cannot participate in on-line learning.”

“We have observed so many things as a result of COVID-19. The first thing, which is something that continues, is the uncertainty of it all,” said Louie F. Rodriguez, Ed.D., University of California Riverside. “What we have failed to adequately examine are the inputs that produce the outcomes or what others refer to as the opportunity gap.”

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/

Courtesy: WalletHub