Find Out Why Indiana’s School System is Ranked Among the Best in America

Choosing the right school for your kiddo is a huge decision for parents. What does that even mean - the "right" school? That answer is probably different for every student. So how does a parent - especially parents of youngsters just starting school - make that decision? WalletHub just released a report that might provide some insight to parents.

The Best & Worst School Systems in America

This report takes a little bit of a different approach when ranking state's school systems...

Each state was scored in two main categories and several sub-categories. The category that accounted for 80% of the score is Quality, which includes metrics like Dropout Rate, Math Test Scores, Reading Test Scores, Median SAT Score, and many others. The other main category is Safety, which looks at things like Share of Threatened/Injured High School Students, Share of High School Students Not Attending School Due to Safety Concerns, Share of Armed High School Students, Number of School Shootings.

Hooray for the Hoosier State

I am excited to share that Indiana scored really well, just barely missing the top ten, and getting ranked the 11th best school system in the country. Our overall score was 57.04 and we ranked 13th in Quality and 12th in safety. One metric that deserves pointing out is the dropout rate. Indiana has the 5th lowest dropout rate, and our neighbor to the south (Kentucky) has the 3rd lowest dropout rate.

Who's #1 on the List?

I thought it was pointing out which state is ranked at the top of the list, only because the competition isn't even close - it's Massachusetts by a long shot. Massachusetts ranked #1 in both Quality and Safety, and had a total score of 73.02. By comparison, Connecticut (#2 on the list) had a total score of 65.60.

Scroll over the map below to see how the rest of the states ranked, and check out the full report if you want to do a deeper dive into the data.