I grew up and went to school in Texas.
My young dudes have grown up and gone to school in North Carolina. My wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Getting A Bit Fed Up With This, grew up and went to school in Florida.
If the rankings of these respective states is to be believed, and I do, then it’s an astonishing miracle-like happening that any of the young dudes in our family can tie their shoelaces without drooling all over their shoes and forgetting what they’re supposed to be doing halfway through.
Education, in North Carolina, Texas and Florida is, to put it bluntly, being run on the cheap. Don’t believe me?
Here, check out this compelling infographic.
Produced By Best Education Degrees
Florida is the highest ranked of the three and it’s up there in the heady heights of 39th place, which is crappy at the very best.
I realize that not everything comes down to how much money gets spent on education, but it doesn’t help when our state government won’t put out the money to make a better school system. If we paid teachers more money, we could more easily retain the best teachers, those who would actually motivate students to learn and achieve more.
The results speak for themselves, I’m thinking. Money can’t buy you success, but it can sure make it easier for you to get there.
Talk to your state and local representatives today, dudes. Get on their case until they start spending enough to give our kids a real, first-class education.
For those of you interested in the provenance of the data, go ahead and click on the more button just down there.
Here’s the 411 on how all that information was gathered and from where.
High school graduation rate
The percentage of all students that graduated from high school with a regular diploma in the standard number of years (i.e., four years) statewide.
Source: Department Of Education
http://eddataexpress.ed.gov/data-element-explorer.cfm/tab/data/deid/3045/
Education spending per student
Education spending per pupil and elementary/secondary education revenues for each state.
Source: U.S. Census
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html
College graduation rate
Percentage of state population over 25 with bachelor’s degree or higher
Source: U.S. Census
Student-teacher ratio
Number of Students Per Teacher
Source: Department Of Education
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/index.asp (note, no ‘list’ on their site, i had to manually check each states profile page to pull stats, link here is to the state search page for proof reference)
Teen pregnancy rate
Rate of Teen Pregnancy per 1,000
Source: Guttmacher Institute
http://www.livescience.com/27417-teen-pregnancy-rates-by-state.html
8th grade math assessment
% of Students at or Above Basic – Grade 8 Math
Source: Department Of Education
This was a hard one to find on their site. You will need to go to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/index.asp click a state, then at very bottom, expand data listing for testing.
8th grade reading assessment
% of Students at or Above Basic – Grade 8 Reading
Source: Department Of Education
This was a hard one to find on their site. You will need to go to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/index.asp click a state, then at very bottom, expand data listing for testing.
8th grade science assessment
% of Students at or Above Basic – Grade 8 Science
Source: Department Of Education
This was a hard one to find on their site. You will need to go to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/index.asp click a state, then at very bottom, expand data listing for testing.
8th grade writing assessment
% of Students at or Above Basic – Grade 8 Science
Source: Department Of Education
This was a hard one to find on their site. You will need to go to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/index.asp click a state, then at very bottom, expand data listing for testing.