States with the best school systems
1 Massachusetts
2 New Jersey
3 Connecticut
4 Vermont
5 Wisconsin
6 New Hampshire
7 Virginia
8 Maine
9 Delaware
10 Minnesota
States with the Worst School Systems
42 Alabama
43 Oregon
44 Nevada
45 West Virginia
46 Mississippi
47 District of Columbia
48 Arizona
49 Alaska
50 New Mexico
51 Louisiana
Source: WalletHub
If education is the path to better income and good schools are the path to a strong economy, then we’ve got some roadwork still to do, according to WalletHub.
Georgia ranks 35th in the nation on the quality of its schools, according to a calculation by the credit and consulting company, which assessed the states on 17 different metrics and released the report today as some Atlanta-area schools were opening.
The conventional wisdom about education has some data support, they say in their report: "Those with a bachelor's degree earned 68 percent more than those with only a high school diploma, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, revealing that income potential grows — and chances of unemployment shrink — as educational attainment improves."
Among the southern states ranking below Georgia:
— Tennessee (36)
— South Carolina (37)
— Alabama (42)
— Mississippi (46)
— Louisiana (51)
While many American households have been struggling for year — or decades — to progress financially, and millions of households are still recovering from the damage done during the recession, having education is still an advantage.
Wallet Hub ranks all the states, as well as headquarters city, Washington, D.C.
Among the measures: online options, dropout rate, the high school graduation rate for low-income students, pupil-teacher ratio as well as scores on standardized tests.
WalletHub also includes some "safety" data, like the percentage of being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property and the youth-incarceration rate.
States that are richer are not necessarily better at education, WalletHub says. But it sure doesn't hurt to be richer and there is a bit of a feedback effect: "According to an Economic Policy Institute report, income is higher in states where the workforce is well educated and thus more productive. In turn, workers with better earnings contribute greater taxes to beef up state budgets over the long run."
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