Washington State Gets "Mixed" Review in Rankings for States for K-12 Education

From the Huffington Post, a report about a ranking list from a personal finance site, Wallethub, for K-12 education in the 50 states. 

Washington state ranks 15th overall (kind of surprising) but 29th in spending, giving our state their "mixed" ranking.  They give our state a 50 for "Education output and safety."

Education Output & Safety

  • Safest Schools (Percentage of Public School Students in Grades 9–12 who Reported being Threatened or Injured with a Weapon on School Property): 1
  • Bullying Incidents Rate: 1
  • Percentage of People (25+) with Bachelor’s Degree or Higher: 0.5
  • Champlain University High School Financial Literacy Grade: 1
No surprise, states that rank high in overall K-12 education, also spend the most.  Top scores went to New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Kansas.  The worst? Nevada, Louisiana (home of the charter "miracle"), Alabama, Mississippi and the District of Columbia.

The article notes:

Overall, Wallethub's rankings were somewhat similar to a recent list from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which found the best states for education were Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut. However, the foundation found the worst states were West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Nevada.

Comments

Melissa Westbrook said…
Great point, RRR. Brownback has really taken a hatchet to school funding.
8/5/14, 9:59 AM
Greeny said…
Thank you, RRN - and a great reminder to make sure I fact-check second sources before making decisions to, oh say, jump ship from SPS (before we've even had one day in school!) and move to....anywhere. Have been thinking a lot on Finland lately...

And thank you Melissa & co for your prolific reading and informative posts.
8/6/14, 1:34 PM
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