Education 101

A co-worker and I were having one of our regular winding, long-winded conversations the other day and at some point the topic turned to education. He was wondering why some states have education systems that are so much better than others. I mentioned that Maryland, where we are, is usually on any list of high quality education and the bottom of the list usually included Louisiana (my home state), Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Two of my best friends are products of Louisiana and Arkansas educations and they are pretty smart, so maybe lists don’t mean much.

By an interesting coincidence, I got an email today from a Maryland Congressman congratulating Maryland for coming out Number One on a just-published list of states with the best overall education systems. Yeah us! So I dug a little in search of the whole list. I was wrong about most of it.

The states I thought were at the bottom were not. Mississippi is close, at #45 and Alabama is #32. Louisiana is just above mid-point at #23 and Arkansas is near the top!!! Number 5!!! I was way wrong on that one, wasn’t I? My friend’s home state Minnesota is #37 on the list and Ohio, the state he lived in before moving to Maryland, is #10. I also have friends connected to Wisconsin (#18) and California (#33).

The top five: Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Arkansas.

The bottom five (50 states plus DC): #51 South Dakota, #50 Nebraska, #49 DC, # 48 Nevada and #47 Idaho.

The full list is at the bottom of the pages on THIS LINK.

Rrriiiinnnggg!!!!!!! OK class, that’s all for today. For your homework, read a book, any book. Learn something. Class dismissed.

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