California School System Ranks 40th Nationally, Survey Finds
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — An analysis of the school systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia has found California is in the back of the pack.
Personal finance site WalletHub says it evaluated "17 key metrics," including a state's student-teacher ratio, students' average SAT and ACT scores and dropout rates.
California has the country's highest pupil-to-teacher ratio, the study found, which no doubt hurt its ranking. Students in California also rank fifth-worst in reading test scores.
California ranked 38th in overall "quality of education" and 35th in school safety.
Lawrence O. Picus, associate dean for faculty affairs and a professor of education finance and policy at USC, contributed to the study.
He said that school funding matters, but does not explain everything when it comes to educational quality. He said it's also also important to have strong personnel to use those resources effectively.
"School quality is a function of providing adequate resources (personnel, instructional materials, etc.) to students and then offering strong instruction programs that challenge children and help those who are struggling so they can master the material," he said on WalletHub's website.
"That said, districts and schools with higher spending are able to provide more, and higher-quality, resources for student learning, which would improve school quality. So overall, more spending should lead to higher school quality if used by strong leaders and high quality teachers."