chevydriver1123

Those evil communist liberals in Vermont followed by those evil American hating gays in Massachusetts.


Smartest State 2006-2007

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new coup for you

what an incendiary thing to post

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TOJ

AR, TN, and KY ranking ahead of OH, MI, and IL should clue you in that this study has some serious flaws.

CaptainCourtesy

Looking at the 21 criteria, I have serious questions about the methodology of this 'study', especially in it's pronouncement as being for the 'State'. I don't think I'd use this study to buoy an argument.

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Kandahar

Ya, it seems like some of the criteria don't make any sense. "Percent of School-Age Population in Public Schools" is considered a positive factor, for some reason. The way I see it, that could be either positive or negative, depending on the REASON people aren't in public schools.

I can believe that. As a native Ohioan, I can tell you that the only good schools in the state are in the wealthy suburbs of Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Dayton. The inner city schools are awful, as are the rural schools.

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RightinNYC

Pretty crappy "study", considering a lot of it relies on things like wages in areas and spending per pupil.

Here's a clue for the authors of that page - things like cost of living vary from area to area, so of course average teacher salaries (along with all salaries) are going to be higher in places like Vermont and NH than they are in places like Arizona or Nevada. Doesn't mean the teaching is any better.

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niftydrifty

after the elections in 2000 and 2004, several hoax emails circulated boasting that blue states were smarter than red states. they attempted to draw a correlation between intelligence and voting patterns. the data, average iq for each state, was bogus. but here's another with iq data per state that is possibly more "accurate."

IQ and Politics - the accurate version

"These IQ's are calculated from state SAT and ACT scores, adjusted downward about 10 points to get to average. Experts say SAT and IQ tests both measure intelligence."

IQ averages in US States - best estimate available

SAT and IQ scores correlate

if the "smartest states" had to be identified, I'd bet my money on these results, if I had to.

edit: oh, here also is a link from the census. table 13 is "Educational Attainment of the Population 25 Years and Over, By State"

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2006 Detailed Tables

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RightinNYC

The first part doesn't seem too objectionable, but I don't think using educational attainment is a good measure of intelligent. In large portions of the country, higher education is not necessary to have a good career, consequently resulting in students going directly into the workforce. In others, its more necessary, but many students attend atrocious colleges that are barely more than degree mills.

niftydrifty

agreed. It was merely an "oh, here also" sorta thing.

doughgirl

Maybe this has somethign to do with it. The states in the lower 1/3rd are the states that have the most illegals.



Costs of Educating Legal & Illegal Immigrants


"In Arizona, the $748 million spent annually educating illegal immigrant children could:

• Improve state funding for education, which in this year’s Quality Counts 2005 state-by-state education report ranked Arizona 50th in per-pupil spending. To close the gap with the national average in spending per student would cost the state an additional $1.6 billion.
  
• Help close the potential gap resulting from decreased federal 2006 funding to the state of between $587–$763 million."