WalletHub's Ranking Of The Most And Least Educated States-Some Reasons To Be Cautious
A new study by WalletHub tries to answer that question by combining 18 factors to rank the most and least educated states in America. The factors were grouped into two main categories - Educational Attainment (60% of the total score) and Quality of Education and Attainment Gap (40% of the score).
Educational attainment was calculated based on the percentage of adults, 25 years and older with each of the following: a high school diploma; some college experience or an associate's degree; a bachelor's degree; or a graduate or professional degree.
Quality of Education and Attainment Gap used several indictors of k-12 education and a few measures pertaining to higher education. Included were such items as the quality of the state's public school system, the number of Blue Ribbon Schools per capita, high-school graduation rate, National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, Advanced Placement test performance, the quality of the universities in the state and the number of students per capita enrolled in top universities, whether states have voucher programs and have passed summer learning legislation, whether states have free community college, and the size of racial and gender gaps in the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees.
Based on this methodology, the top-ten ranked states were:
Massachusetts
Colorado
Vermont
Connecticut
Virginia
Washington
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Minnesota
The states ranked 41-50 in order were:
Tennessee
New Mexico
Nevada
South Carolina
Kentucky
Alabama
Arkansas
Louisiana
West Virginia
Mississippi
A closer look at the methodology:
Rankings such as these are only as good as the methodology behind them, and in this case, while WalletHub deserves credit for striving to be comprehensive, several aspects of its methodology do not stand up particularly well to closer scrutiny. Here are several reasons to be cautious about giving too much credence to the results:
The presence of a high percentage of adults with a college credential may reflect as much about migration as it does a state's higher education institutions. If Colorado attracts a lot more college-educated adults to move to it than does Louisiana, Colorado earns a higher score, but that score does not necessarily indicate that Colorado's education system is superior. The relationship between the percentage of highly educated adults in a state and that state's educational system is complicated, and while it's reasonable to assume that the presence of great universities will increase a state's college attainment levels, how strong a magnet such institutions actually are is not clear.
Several of the indicators used for the Quality of Education category are of questionable validity. For example:
Where is the evidence that the availability of educational vouchers is associated with better student outcomes? Vouchers may be politically popular among some groups, but that's not the same as claiming that a state with vouchers offers higher quality education than one without vouchers.
Likewise, why does the fact that a state offers free community college necessarily mean that it's more educated than a state that doesn't? Logically, one might argue the opposite - that the need for free community college means the state is trying to increase its educational attainment levels in order to catch up with competitors.
Why does the fact that there might be a relatively small gap in educational achievement based on race or gender reveal a strong school system if the rates of attainment are low across the board?
Why does it matter if a state has passed summer learning legislation? Do we know the percentage of students who even participate in summer programs? And if we did, what would those participation rates reveal?
Are vouchers and summer learning legislation more important than legislation regulating early childhood education, more essential than the laws establishing the accreditation of public schools, a greater priority than a state's programming for children with disabilities?
Rankings of this sort are almost irresistible. They tap into America's competitive spirit and its quest to be best. They offer simple quantification of complex qualities. They make good copy. But don't take them too seriously. Cautious curiosity is advised.