Maine and New England Clean Up in Latest Public Education Report

It was a solid showing for the state of Maine in a recent public education report.

Wallethub.com, a personal finance website, published its annual state rankings of the best and worst public education systems. The Pine Tree State slid into a respectable 12th ranking on this year's report.

Maine came in with a score of 56.09 out of 100. The scoring is based on 32 different metrics that primarily fall under the "quality" and "safety" categories. Quality includes metrics like test scores, dropout rate, and graduation statistics, while safety consists of categories like school shootings, bullying rates, drug incidents, and more. You can read about Wallethub's methodology and see all of the metrics here.

While Maine scored a very average 25th in quality, the state's safety score was a masterful 3rd, which launched Maine to its 12th placed ranking.

It's great to see Maine performing relatively well. Clearly, public education has been under a serious microscope, especially through the Covid-19 Pandemic and the 18 million controversial topics with seemingly zero compromise from anyone. It's also good see that school safety does continue to be one of Maine's strongest metrics, which is something the state should be very proud of.

Number one on the list is sadly Massachusetts, coming in with a score of 72.79. The Bay State amazingly finished with the top ranking in both quality and safety, making it easy to run away with the top spot. The rest of the top 5 consists of Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.

New England is clearly a region you want your kids to go to public school, as the area cleaned house. All six states finished in the Top 16 (MA - 1, CT - 2, NH - 7, VT - 11, ME - 12, RI - 16), proving once again how dominant and smart this area truly is.

I'm not trying to say New Englanders are a better breed than anyone else, but that's exactly what I'm saying.