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States With The Best Public School Systems

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There are many factors that contribute to a great public school system: performance, funding, safety, class size and instructor credentials, to name a few. Although the quality of public schools can vary greatly within a state, personal finance site WalletHub recently set out to determine which states generally have the top ranked school systems from K-12.

Massachusetts ranked as the No. 1 state for public schools, taking the lead in both quality and safety. New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia followed behind. Some of the worst ranked states for public schools included New Mexico, Louisiana, Alaska and Arizona, along with District of Columbia.

The study broke results down by additional categories, such as states with the lowest dropout rate, or the highest SAT and ACT scores. States such as Iowa, New Jersey, West Virginia, Nebraska and Texas have the lowest dropout rates, whereas the highest dropout rates can be found in Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico and District of Columbia.

In Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin, students have the highest median SAT scores. The lowest scores can be found in District of Columbia, Delaware and Idaho.

With safety as a major consideration in the quality of public schools, states such as Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont, California and Pennsylvania reported the lowest percentage of threatened or injured high school students, whereas Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi reported the highest percentage. And while bullying is low in D.C. and Delaware, it’s quite high in Arkansas and Idaho.

“I will say that from literature I have read, more than any factor, teacher quality seems to be the strongest predictor of student achievement,” says Laura Hsu, assistant professor at Merrimack College. “Thus, recruiting and retaining strong teachers would ideally be the priority for every school.” This is, of course, linked to budgets, she explains.

Budget cuts surely have an impact on the quality of public school education, with funds declining over the past decades. “Educators are asked to do more—federal and state mandates—with less funding,” says Barbara Jeanne Erwin, clinical associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington.

Erwin cautions that measuring the best and worst states for public schools certainly isn’t easy, since they all have different funding systems and state required tests. “Unfortunately most parents do not understand that education in one state usually has different state funding mechanisms than the state they are in living in,” she adds.

Here’s WalletHub’s rankings of states with the best and worst school systems.

Public School Ranking by State

Overall Rank
(1 = Best)
State Total Score ‘Quality’ Rank ‘Safety’ Rank
1 Massachusetts 74.16 1 1
2 New Jersey 67.09 3 9
3 Connecticut 66.93 2 11
4 New Hampshire 65.11 4 7
5 Vermont 63.18 5 4
6 Virginia 63.03 7 2
7 Minnesota 60.34 6 27
8 Maryland 57.82 10 20
9 Wisconsin 57.59 9 26
10 Colorado 57.45 14 8
11 North Dakota 57.03 11 29
12 Wyoming 57.02 8 37
13 Maine 56.82 16 5
14 Nebraska 56.42 12 28
15 Kansas 55.55 21 6
16 Iowa 55.33 13 35
17 Rhode Island 54.78 19 14
18 Washington 54.58 17 10
19 Delaware 54.36 31 3
20 Kentucky 54.34 20 19
21 Illinois 54.20 15 40
22 New York 53.36 24 12
23 Montana 52.78 18 37
24 Indiana 52.69 22 23
25 South Dakota 52.27 23 24
26 Florida 52.10 25 22
27 Ohio 51.93 29 18
28 Pennsylvania 51.36 30 17
29 Missouri 51.20 26 34
30 Utah 50.99 28 32
31 Michigan 50.07 27 44
32 North Carolina 48.91 32 25
33 Oklahoma 48.79 36 16
34 Idaho 47.84 33 39
35 Tennessee 46.90 39 15
36 Texas 46.90 35 41
37 California 46.33 38 21
38 Georgia 45.67 37 42
39 Hawaii 45.09 41 13
40 South Carolina 42.24 40 46
41 Arkansas 42.18 34 50
42 West Virginia 39.91 44 31
43 Oregon 39.79 42 49
44 Alabama 38.98 43 45
45 Mississippi 38.87 45 43
46 Nevada 38.54 47 36
47 Arizona 37.53 48 30
48 Alaska 35.87 50 33
49 District of Columbia 33.62 49 48
50 Louisiana 32.50 46 51
51 New Mexico 31.53 51 47

Source: WalletHub