‘C’ student: Ohio’s school system ranked average again

Ohio’s public school system has again been graded roughly average compared to other states, this time by WalletHub, a personal finance website.

WalletHub ranked Ohio public schools 23rd out of the 50 states and Washington D.C. in a report released Monday.

That generally matches with the more closely watched Education Week rankings, which came out in January and put Ohio 22nd out of 50 states.

RELATED: Ohio school system rated exactly average nationally

WalletHub’s rankings focus on quality and safety, with Ohio ranking 22nd in quality and 24th in safety.

Overall, Ohio ranked ahead of neighbors Kentucky (27th), Michigan (32nd) and West Virginia (49th), but behind Pennsylvania (16th) and Indiana (22nd).

Quality is 60 percent of the rating, made up of 13 subcategories. Eight have to do with testing, from the NAEP exam, to Advanced Placement tests as well as the ACT and SAT. Others categories include graduation rates, student/teacher ratio and teacher licensing data.

RELATED: Magazine rates two local high schools highly

Safety is 40 percent, made up of eight subcategories. Five were based on student-reported statistics about violence, drugs, weapons and threats. The other categories were bullying, incarceration and school discipline rates.

In the eight categories where WalletHub showed slight detail — four testing areas, student-teacher ratio, dropout rate, bullying, and threats/injuries — Ohio did not crack the best five or worst five in any of them.

Outside of their main rankings, WalletHub also ranked each state on total spending per K-12 student, and listed Ohio’s spending as slightly lower — 31st out of 51.

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