Colorado leads the nation in education, according to U.S. News & World Report
New state rankings from U.S. News & World Report show Colorado losing ground in several areas, but not education.
The state fell from 11 to 17 overall based on a wide range of metrics. The Centennial State is near the bottom for crime and fiscal stability and dropped three spots to No. 9 for opportunity and economy. But Colorado is No. 1 for education, which has been a top issue for Gov. Jared Polis. Before becoming governor, Polis founded a charter school, chaired the State Board of Education, and was the ranking member on the House Committee on Education & the Workforce in Congress. He says education is what drew him into public service and being named the top state in the country for education is one of his proudest moments as governor.
"This has been many years of hard work," Polis said.
The governor celebrated the ranking with members of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver at Farrell B. Howell ECE-8 School in Denver.
Since he took office in 2019, the state has added free all-day kindergarten, free pre-school for all 4-year-olds, two years of free college for low-income students and free community and technical college for students in high demand jobs like nursing, construction, early childhood and law enforcement.
K-12 per pupil funding has seen an increase of more than 50% and Polis says high school graduation rates have increased from 80% to 85%.
"We've done that by making high school more relevant; how do you graduate high school with a degree, a certificate? OK, you're into robotics and STEM? How 'bout you do a competition. You're into arts? How do you have a portfolio as part of that and prepare you for a career in graphic design?"
U.S. News & World Report says Colorado's ranking is based largely on increases in the number of students graduating with two-year degrees, the number of kids in pre-school, and the education level of the state's adult population.
Vance Schoales with Keystone Policy Center says the report cherry picked criteria. He says the state ranks in the middle of the nation for literacy and math scores and its at-risk students rank even lower.
"The headline is is that Colorado has the best public education system in the country, and we're far from it by almost any objective measure," he said.
Schoales says Polis deserves high marks for his education policies, but he says it will be years before we know how effective they are.
Polis admits being No. 1 in the U.S. is a low bar when compared to other industrialized countries, but he says it's better than being No. 50.
"Being No. 1 in America sadly isn't good enough because other countries are outperforming us. Yes, we're No. 1 in America. We want to be No. 1 in the world and there's a lot more work to do to get there," he said.
