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