BY MORGAN BENSON, Sophomore
BLYTHEWOOD-- There has been a debate in America since the establishment of a national public school system, and that is to see which state has the highest ranked education system.
Massachusetts has always seemed to pave the path for the rest of the country, but it seems South Carolina has barely been able to keep up. However, based on some recent research, that does not seem to be the case.
According to the United States Census Bureau, South Carolina is ranked 40 out of the 50 states as far as number of high schoolers graduating at 83.6%; New Jersey ranked first at 91.8% and Texas ranked last at 79.9%.
“South Carolina had one of the highest nationwide as far as standards, but the execution of the standards and the average grades of the students put South Carolina far behind nationwide,” according to Anderson Independent-Mail.
“Massachusetts, South Carolina, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Connecticut, in that order, had the five highest ‘NAEP score equivalents’. In other words, Massachusetts' proficiency standard matched the NAEP standard for 4th grade reading better than any other state's,” according to Stanford University’s Department of Education.
Even with these statistics there are still some people who think South Carolina still has not perfected their education system. And need to focus more of their finances on education.
“I don’t think that South Carolina spends enough money towards education and spend it on other less important expenses,” sophomore Caitlin Mobley said.
In addition to the lack of finances there are also people who believe the qualification of the teachers.
"I don't think that the all of the teachers that are hired into the South Carolinian education system are necessarily qualified to teach students effectively," sophomore Jaysha Johnson said.
“I have heard that there are some states that only let the student with the highest grades take the SAT and South Carolina allows everyone to take the SAT. This most likely has something to do with the low rank in education that South Carolina has,” Mobley said.
