In a national survey released yesterday, schools in California received an overall grade of a 76.2 out of 100, putting the quality of education in the Golden State just below the national average of 76.3. The annual Quality Counts survey, conducted by the folks behind the non-profit Education Week magazine, ranks California schools 30th in the nation based on six criteria including "Chance for Success", "K-12 Achievement" and "Standards, Assessment & Accountability".
According to Inside Bay Area, problem areas like, "poor reading and math scores, a low graduation rate and sinking funding," are all bringing down the state's grade. It's probably good, in that case that Jerry Brown's proposed budget didn't cut any dollars from K-12 education where California ranked 46th in the country with a D-minus for achievement.
Things aren't all bad in California schools: according to the handy charts on EdWeek.org the state got a perfect score for preparing students to enter the workforce (only a rating of 70 for college readiness though). Our standards for assessment also got an A grade despite the fact that standardized tests used in the survey don't necessarily align with the curriculum used by the California Department of Education.
By comparison, this SFist editor was apparently coddled as a youth by Virginia's No. 4-ranked, B-minus public schools that got a perfect score for early-childhood education, but woefully under-prepared for College because of a big fat F rating for college readiness. We must have had an ample supply of crayons, but a dearth of SAT prep. On the other hand, we would advise against sending the kids to school in South Dakota, Nebraska or the District of Columbia - who all received D-pluses on their report cards.
