Alabama has been ranked the 8th worst school system in the United States in a new report titled 2018’s States with the Best & Worst School Systems released Monday by the personal-finance website WalletHub.
Unlike other research that focuses primarily on academic outcomes or school finance, WalletHub’s analysis takes a more comprehensive approach. It accounts for performance, funding, safety, class size and instructor credentials. To determine the top-performing school systems in America, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 25 key metrics ranging from pupil-teacher ratio to dropout rate to median standardized-test scores
Quality and safety of schools in Alabama (1= best; 25= avg.):
- 48th: Math test scores
- 45th: Reading test scores
- 43rd: Pupil-teacher ratio
- 22nd: Median SAT score
- 46th: Median ACT score
- 19th: % of licensed/certified public K–12 teachers
- 16th: Dropout rate
- 40th: % of threatened/injured high school students
The study also ranked states based on spending, and Alabama was ranked 40th for spending, which may help explain why it’s overall ranking of 44 is so low.
Here’s how Alabama compares to the rest of the country: