Vermont And Nebraska Earn Top Grades In Public Education Report

A new report finds Nebraska and Vermont tops in their commitment to public education.

The Network for Public Education, a public education advocacy group co-founded by noted education historian Diane Ravitch, has been releasing reports on US education for nearly a decade. Their newest report, “Public Schooling in America,” looks at a broad collection of data in to measure “how seriously each statehouse takes its obligation to the children who attend public schools within its borders.”

The report issues letter grades for each state. Nebraska and Vermont were the only states to receive an A, while 17 states received an F.

Each state was scored in four areas for an overall score of 102 points. No state was perfect; Nebraska and Vermont scored 87.5 and 82 respectively. The gap between the top and bottom was large; Arizona and Florida came in at the bottom with scores of 18 and 14. Here is the breakdown for the categories.

Privatization: Voucher and Charter Expansion and Student Protections (58 points)

Ten states now have taxpayer-funded universal voucher programs in which all students are eligible. Twenty-seven voucher states do not require private school teachers to be certified. Nineteen states fund homeschooling “with few, if any, checks on instructional quality or student progress.” In all voucher states, students with disabilities give up their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when they take a voucher to attend private school.

In six states, more than half of all charter schools that ever had enrollment have closed. In 39 states, while for-profit charter schools may not be legal, for-profit companies are allowed to manage charter schools. In six states, more than 30% of all charter schools are run by for-profit companies. Only the state of Ohio makes contracts between charters and management companies available on the state education department website.

On the issue of privatization, only Kentucky and Nebraska were awarded an A. 16 states earned an F.

Protections for Homeschooled Children (4 points)

The report states that thirteen states now subsidize homeschooling through vouchers or tax credits. In many states, there have been frequent battles between legislators trying to pass accountability and transparency bills to regulate homeschooling like the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

The report finds that eleven states do not currently require parents to report that they are homeschooling their children. Only two states prevent parents from starting homeschooling during a Child Protective Services investigation. Only eight states require a standardized test, a portfolio, or work to show the student’s academic progress. Only eleven states require that parents have any education of their own, and a GED is enough.

School Funding (16 points)

For the funding element of the report, the writers considered funding level, funding distribution, and funding effort. How much revenue per pupil was collected, how equitably was it distributed, and what percentage of the state’s gross domestic product does it represent? They also looked at average teacher salaries adjusted for the state’s cost of living; the same amount of pay earns a different standard of living depending on whether you are in metropolitan Seattle or rural Pennsylvania.

Florida landed in the bottom five states for all three categories, is the lowest for adjusted teacher salaries, and, as covered by the next category, has the highest percentage of underqualified teachers. Florida earned 0 of the 16 points; Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, and Tennessee only earned 2 out of 16.

Overall, thirteen states received a B, thirteen received a C, and six earned a D.

The top state for funding was New York, followed by Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

Conditions That Promote Teaching and Learning (24 points)

This is perhaps the most difficult category to quantify. NPE used several factors, including corporal punishment, bullying and discrimination, student-teacher and student-counselor ratios, collective bargaining, and other factors that would attract high-quality teachers.

The authors found New York and Vermont led in this category. Arizona was at the bottom of the pack.

When it comes to measures that directly affect students– corporal punishment, bullying, non-discrimination laws– eighteen states earned a high rank. Missouri and South Dakota provided no protections in those areas.

Overall, thirteen states received a B, thirteen received a C, and six were awarded a D.

The writers pointed to several patterns that emerged from the study. States that resist homeschooling oversight are, in many cases, the same states subsidizing it. The study also notes a correlation for school choice support and a lack of support for public schools.

“The data confirm what we have long suspected: privatization and disinvestment go hand in hand,” said Carol Burris, Executive Director of NPE and the report’s author. “These are not states struggling with limited resources. They have made deliberate choices to abandon their public schools while directing billions in public dollars to private alternatives.”

The report makes use of NPE’s own research as well as work from other organizations, including the Education Law Center, the Learning Policy Institute, and EdChoice.

The report does not focus on test scores and it does not delve into individual school districts, but it provides a broad look at the educational policies of the states. It gives a comparison of how different legislatures have responded to the growing push for market-based school choice and privatization. While there are school choice advocates who argue that choice will ultimately strengthen traditional public education, looming over the movement is also the attitude expressed by Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for America, when she was still a fellow at The Heritage Foundation and quoted in this report.

“If America’s public schools cease to exist tomorrow, America would be a better place,” Justice told ProPublica. The report attempts to trace which states are pursuing that vision.