Here's The Best School District In Tennessee: Report

A new report has ranked the best school districts in Tennessee and the Williamson County School District topped the list. 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 Tennessee, the Williamson County School District has 35,578 students and spends $8,408 per student, the analysis found. The high school graduation rate is 100 percent and 58.4 percent 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 Tennessee ranked 36th in the country for best schools.

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

• High school graduation rate: 88.5 percent (8th highest)
• Public school spending: $9,605 per pupil (9th lowest)
• 8th grade NAEP proficiency: 29.2 percent (math) 32.8 percent (reading)
• Adults with at least a bachelor's degree: 26.1 percent (10th lowest)
• Adults 25-64 with incomes at or above national median: 45.4 percent (9th lowest)

Robust early childhood education programs in a state can help set students up for academic success in later years. In Tennessee, only 37.8 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in pre-K, one of the smallest shares of any state and about 10 percentage points below the comparable U.S. enrollment figure. Additionally, only 74.9 percent of eligible children in the state are enrolled in kindergarten, below the 78.3 percent U.S. figure, the report said.

Greater enrollment in early childhood education programs may help boost poor academic achievement in the state. Currently, fourth graders in the state are less likely to be proficient in reading than the typical fourth grader nationwide, and eighth graders in Tennessee are less likely to be proficient in math, the authors wrote.

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