General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTop 10 States with the worst Schools
10. Oklahoma
9. Michigan
8. South Dakota
7. South Carolina
6. Alaska
5. Alabama
4. West Virginia
3. New Mexico
2. Louisiana
1. Mississippi
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/01/14/states-with-the-best-and-worst-schools-2/4/
Well I'm sure that will change when those states get some Republicans running them. Hmmmm!!!! 9 of the 10 states are run by Republicans and have been for some time now. Who would have thought it?!?!?!?!
NM_Birder
(1,591 posts)lilithsrevenge12
(136 posts)I'm learning more about international relations from this forum than the international relations class I'm sitting in right now! Apparently, when you dumb down material, your state is no longer considered one of the worst for education.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)And her fellow teachers are the best also. I went to school in South Florida and received an excellent education. That is why Florida did not make the list.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)perhaps a class on statistics is appropriate.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,283 posts)... because "standard deviation" means different things in different parts of FL.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)Could be the Florida education, I guess . . ..
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)She was in tears when she saw how shitty their schools are. The kids were in 2nd and 4th grade at the time and were 18 months ahead of all the schools they visited.
She hates it there and says with almost 100% accuracy she can talk to someone for 5 minutes and tell if you are a native or a transplant.
However, she mentioned they use their own standardized testing to boost their scores.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)I have been here 31 years and cannot tell a native from a transplant . . .
I ahave two children who have degrees from Florida - both productively employed.
Sounds like your friend has sour grapes and would be better off elsewhere. Either that or she moved to a crappy neighborhood - which can be found in every state.
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)Just the other day, she was talking to a man in a store and when she mentioned she was from Nebraska, he said "I would like to visit there. I have never been to the West coast."
DrDan
(20,411 posts)Florida #7
http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2013/04/22/how-states-compare-in-the-2013-best-high-schools-rankings
The following one shows Florida scoring higher than the national average in 5 of 8 categories of educational progress in math, reading, science and writing
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/sresult.asp?mode=short&s1=12
This info is probably more credible than the anecdotal experiences of someone who hates living in Florida.
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)Rather, it is best analyzed by the average students. After all, the is where the vast majority students will reside. Good for them doing a good job with the highly motivated kids.
lpbk2713
(42,696 posts)that could be a real strong indicator of why you aren't
absorbing anything in the class you are in.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Walk away
(9,494 posts)Please...somebody impeach him and his crooked Lieutenant Governor before they spend the next 4 year destroying the state!
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)> State score: 82.1
> High school graduation rate: 83.1% (5th best)
> Per pupil expenditure: $14,920 (6th highest)
> Preschool enrollment: 63.4% (2nd highest)
The proportion of New Jersey eighth graders performing at an advanced level on math sections of national tests increased by 9.2 percentage points in the past 10 years, more than double the rate of improvement nationwide. Last year, 46.3% of New Jerseys eighth graders were proficient in math, second only to Massachusetts. New Jersey scored in the top 10 in all four spending indicators measured by Education Week. The state spent nearly 5% of its taxable resources on K-12 schooling that year, second only to Vermont. However, Education Week graded New Jerseys management of its teachers among the worst in 2012. Recently, as part of Governor Chris Christies focus on education, the state has introduced teacher tenure programs that aim to make it more difficult for mediocre teachers to continue teaching poorly.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)to continue to work even if they are great teachers. It has become fashionable to berate teachers in NJ. His goal is to break the union and hire the cheapest teachers and fire them when he needs to cut taxes. It's all about vouchers and charter schools now.
New Jersey's schools are something to be proud of but not for long. Most of the really dedicated and best teachers I know are taking early retirement. Chris Christie has raided the budget for our schools and used the money to give hundreds of millions in taxbreaks to our North Bergen billionaires.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Imagine that.
9 of 10 of those schools are red states. Imagine that. Again.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Why am I not surprised.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)Or am I imagining it?
Maybe you should email the people who wrote the article and tell them they're southern bashing.
kiva
(4,373 posts)I'm coming up with a maximum of 5, and that's if you count W. Virginia which is pretty iffish.
Perhaps you need to work on deciphering maps and charts and stuff: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4374509
Six.
B2G
(9,766 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Oklahoma is not a southern state, and West Virginia is iffy because it is Appalachia, much like eastern Kentucky, eastern Ohio, western Maryland and central Pennsylvania.
11 Bravo
(23,922 posts)Ignorance is one thing. Willful ignorance is quite another.
lpbk2713
(42,696 posts)BWAHAHA
OMFG
a la izquierda
(11,784 posts)Though I live in Morgantown, which has excellent schools, and more or less considers itself a suburb of Pittsburgh, fwiw.
kiva
(4,373 posts)I don't see it as the South at all but I gave that as a possibility to the poster since some people do - I think it's the 'Virginia' part that makes them assume it's the South. I'm still mystified as to the identity of that sixth southern state the poster thinks exists.
a la izquierda
(11,784 posts)But at the op in general.
kiva
(4,373 posts)I mostly replied because discussions about regionalism interest me, even though in grad school I swore I'd rather have a root canal without novocain than have one more "where is the West" discussion.
cordelia
(2,174 posts)Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)raccoon
(31,091 posts)rustbeltvoice
(427 posts)The usual suspects.
Some things do not change much. I remember looking at lists from yesteryears and a commonality of results in rankings of all sorts of measures of well being and the bottom was constant. A list that follows really was typical. This is not "bashing", the South and parts of Appalachia were poor (and largely still are) for the vast majority of their residents.
2. Alabama
3. Arkansas
4. West Virginia
5. Louisiana
There was an old joke, "what is the state cheer (or motto) of Alabama?"
"Thank God, for Mississippi".
This is why Huey Long was hated by the local powers that were. He raised money to improve Louisiana.
This is why William Faulkner has never been appreciated in Mississippi. He was fool enough to tell the truth.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)And of course, schools can vary widely in quality from district to district within the same state. Fifty years ago, for example, Rogers, Arkansas was considered to have a better school system than surrounding districts, including Bentonville. But now Bentonville is awash in Wal-Mart money and its schools are at least on a par with Rogers, which itself has been spending a considerable amount of money on its schools. Their newest high school, for example, looks like something out of The Jetsons. And even Pea Ridge, which had long had a reputation of being a hillbilly heaven, has vastly improved its schools compared with what I knew of them in the '60s and '70s.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)what I wanted to hear...
My son and his family just moved from Mass to SC last week, at the urging of my DIL, who has been trying for years to move out of this state to just about anywhere else.
And I have two granddaughters, 12 and 10.
Fortunately, they had a pretty good start up here for a few years in a private school before they had to quit and attend public schools, which, even then, was not that bad.
But I don't feel good about the school in SC thing, although they're both bright and curious, and hopefully can overcome whatever deficits there might be in the school system down there.
raccoon
(31,091 posts)former9thward
(31,803 posts)Schools are run locally not by states. There are good and bad schools in every state. Chicago has had the worst schools in the U.S. by every measure for decades. IL does not appear on the ten worst states because the schools outside of Chicago are so much better.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)One could say the same about Michigan, it has only been the past 4 years that Snyder has been in. Would be interesting to see the same list from 2008. I am surprised Texas and Georgia aren't on it.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)The school was literally in shambles.
polichick
(37,152 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Seems to me that Michigan was on the top schools list around 10 years or so ago.
What happened? Or, maybe my memory is just faulty. I was interested at the time because a friend of ours had daughter and small kids moving there. When the statistics came out (as they do every year) about top schools she was glad to see Michigan was top and they were moving from New Jersey.
polichick
(37,152 posts)MrScorpio
(73,626 posts)Reduction of the tax base from loss of industry AND Republicans.
Capitalism and politics