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States With the Best (and Worst) Schools
<p class="post-meta"> <span class="byline">By <a class="vcard
author url"
href="http://247wallst.com/author/thomas-c-frohlich/"
title="Posts by Thomas C. Frohlich" rel="author"
itemprop="author" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="fn"
itemprop="name">Thomas C. Frohlich</span></a>, <a
class="vcard author url"
href="http://247wallst.com/author/247evan/" title="Posts by
Evan Comen" rel="author" itemprop="author" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="fn"
itemprop="name">Evan Comen</span></a>, <a class="vcard
author url" href="http://247wallst.com/author/247samstebbins/"
title="Posts by Sam Stebbins" rel="author" itemprop="author"
itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span
class="fn" itemprop="name">Sam Stebbins</span></a> and <a
class="vcard author url"
href="http://247wallst.com/author/michael-sauter/"
title="Posts by Michael B. Sauter" rel="author"
itemprop="author" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="fn"
itemprop="name">Michael B. Sauter</span></a></span> <span
class="timestamp" itemprop="datePublished"
content="2016-01-08T12:04:47+00:00">January 8, 2016 12:04 pm EST</span>
</p>
<b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/hzgxy3e">http://tinyurl.com/hzgxy3e</a> </b>
<div itemprop="articleBody" class="entry-content">
<p>The controversial education law No Child Left Behind has been
recently revised for the first time since its introduction in
2001. The revisions are expected to return a degree of control
over education policy to state and local school districts. While
federal, state, and local policies can have considerable impact
on education in the United States, the way education is governed
is just one of many factors driving educational outcomes.
Parents and community leaders, environmental conditions, and the
students themselves also play a role. Also, as proponents of the
law’s revision have indicated, education systems vary
considerably between states.</p>
<p>24/7 Wall St. reviewed education data for each state from the
2015 Quality Counts report released annually by Education Week.
The report assessed measures in three broad categories that can
determine the strength of a school system: school finances,
student achievement, and environmental factors. Massachusetts
leads the nation as the state with the best public schools,
while Nevada’s public school system received the poorest review.</p>
<div id="dfp-in-text"> </div>
<p>According to Sterling Lloyd, senior research associate at the
Education Week Research Center, some states have made large
strides over the years, but in general, states do not tend to
move very much in the Quality Counts ranking. “It’s hard to move
the needle on some of these indicators in the short run,” Lloyd
said.</p>
<p><span style="color:#008000;"><strong><a
href="http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/01/08/states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools-3/2/"
style="color:#008000;">Click here to see the best (and
worst) schools in each state.</a></strong></span></p>
<p>Socioeconomic and other environmental conditions, for example,
tend to change only over long periods of time. The prevalence of
poverty as well as education levels among parents are major
determining factors of public school quality. In the United
States, 56% of children are raised in households with income at
least double the poverty level. In all but two of the states in
the top half of the rankings, this share is greater. Conversely,
this was the case in only four of the 25 lower ranked states.</p>
<p>Factors such as these can determine the chances of success not
just in school, but also over the course of an entire lifetime.
These social and economic factors “capture the role of education
in a person’s life, from cradle to career,” Lloyd said.</p>
<p>School districts in high-income areas tend to have larger
school budgets. Average annual per pupil school spending exceeds
the national average of $11,667 in 21 of the 25 states at the
higher end of EdWeek’s ranking. At the lower end of the
spectrum, educational expenditure in only three states exceeds
the national average.</p>
<p>The causal link between school funding and educational outcomes
is far from clear. According to Lloyd, however, while there is
no consensus among researchers, advocates for greater school
funding argue that “funding supports achievement by leading to
access to the best teachers and the most up-to-date
technological resources.”</p>
<p>At the same time, depending on the spending distribution among
school districts, not all students in a given state can benefit
from the state’s supposed high spending. In fact, states that
spend the most per pupil each year also tend to have the least
equitable funding distributions. All 10 states with the widest
gap in education spending between the most well-funded schools
and the most underfunded schools spend more per pupil per year
than the corresponding national average of $11,667. Per pupil
spending in Vermont and Alaska is higher than in every other
state, yet the spending gap between the best funded 5% of school
districts and the worst funded 5% of school districts is also
higher than anywhere else in the country.</p>
<p>Standardized test results are one of the few ways to measure
and compare academic success among states. U.S. students do not
perform well on these tests. Massachusetts leads the nation as
the only state where over half of fourth and eighth graders are
deemed proficient in mathematics. In no state are more than half
of fourth and eighth graders deemed proficient in reading.</p>
<p>While students in well-funded school districts are far more
likely to perform well on tests than students in the less-funded
school districts, this is not always the case. In some of these
states, “students are faring well on tests in reading and math
even though there may be significant barriers in the
environment,” Lloyd said. In addition, “the states that have
made the largest gains often have lower starting points to being
with.”</p>
<p>To identify the states with the best and worst schools, 24/7
Wall St. used Education Week’s Quality Counts 2016 report. The
report is based on three major categories: chance for success,
finances, and K-12 achievement. The chance for success category
includes data on family income, parent education and employment,
child schooling, and employment opportunities after college.
Graduation rates are defined as the percent of public high
school students who graduated on time with a standard diploma
for the 2011-12 school year. All other data are from the most
recent available year, and are based on Education Week’s
analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The finance
category incorporates metrics on cost-adjusted per-pupil
spending and how equitably spending was distributed across
districts in the state in 2013. The K-12 achievement category
uses 2015 test score data from the NAEP. Each category was
weighted equally in determining the final ranking.</p>
</div>
<br>
<p><strong>47. Idaho<br>
> Overall grade:</strong> D+<br>
<strong>> Per pupil spending:</strong> $8,163 (4th smallest)<br>
<strong>> High school graduation rate:</strong> 84.0% (16th
highest)<br>
<strong>> Pct. of eligible children enrolled in preschool:</strong>
31.6% (the lowest)</p>
<p>In Idaho, an average of just $8,163 is spent per student on
education annually, the fourth least of any state. Unlike most
states where school spending is relatively low, education
expenditure in Idaho is relatively poorly distributed — the
disparity across Idaho school districts is worse than in all but
two other states. While high spending is concentrated in the
state, relatively few school districts have adequate funding. Just
3.5% of students receive more funding than the $11,667 U.S.
average. Idaho students perform about as well as the average U.S.
student on the math and reading sections of the NAEP. The quality
of a child’s early education is one of the most important factor
for a student’s academic development. In Idaho, just 31.6% of
three and four year-olds are enrolled in preschool — the smallest
share in the country.<br>
</p>
<p><b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tinyurl.com/hzgxy3e">http://tinyurl.com/hzgxy3e</a> <br>
</b></p>
<p><br>
(11,667 - 8,163) / 11,667 = 0.300 => Idaho's level is thirty
percent less than the average level<br>
</p>
<p>(18,853 - 8,163) / 18,863 = 0.567 => Idaho's level is
fifty-six point seven percent less than the highest level <br>
</p>
<p>18,853 / 8163 = 2.31 => Vermont voters spend two point three
one times as much as Idaho voters on education<br>
</p>
<p>Idaho's education expenditure levels are inadequate to achieve
acceptable educational outcomes for Idaho students.<br>
<br>
</p>
<p><b><br>
Ken<br>
<br>
</b></p>
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