Does Florida Have the "Greatest" Education System in the Country? Desantis Says Yes

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The debate about Florida's education system has sparked once more due to the recent ban on critical race theory in schools. Does Florida have a quality education system, to begin with? Governor DeSantis claims it's the "greatest." But some sources say otherwise.

This article analyzes Florida's education system compared to the rest of the country and asks the question, "Do we have the greatest education system in the nation?"

The Greatest Education System in the Nation

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According to Governor DeSantis in a recent statement to the media, Florida has "the greatest" education in the nation. That's a pretty big claim to make, especially when the data says otherwise.

His statement came during the discussion on why the Florida Department of Education has pretty much banned critical race theory in the classrooms. He defended the policy change for Florida education that will keep critical race theory out of classrooms, implying that critical race theory brings hate to the classroom, and there's no place for that in Florida education.

"I find it unthinkable that there are other people in positions of leadership in the federal government who believe that we should teach kids to hate our country."

DeSantis took it a step further and claimed that Florida is on top as far as education goes.

"I'm proud that we are taking action today to ensure our state continues to have the greatest educational system in the nation."

The question is, though, does Florida have the greatest education system in the country?

Florida's Public Education Versus the Rest of the Country

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Let's take a look at Florida's public education (k-12) compared to the rest of the country. Every year, World Population Review does a comprehensive analysis of the public education system for each state. It looks at public education for k-12 students.

Surely, Florida is in the top ten states as "the greatest" in 2021, right?

Wrong.

Florida clocks in at number 22 for the overall rank. That's right, 22. Not the top 3, 5, or even 10.

Florida Ranked Number 22 out of 50

World Population Review ranks each state's public education by both quality and safety. They use 33 points to measure each ranking. According to the website, these 33 points cover a variety of different data, such as:

• high school graduation rate
• high school graduation rate among low-income students
• math and reading scores
• SAT scores
• ACT scores
• pupil-teach ratio (aka classroom size)
• the number of school shootings between 2000 and June 2020
• bullying incidence rate

Florida ranked as number 19 for the quality data points.

Florida ranked as number 35 for the safety data points.

Again, the overall rank for Florida public schools was 22, which does contradict Governor DeSantis's claim that Florida has the greatest educational system in the nation.

What do you think about Florida's educational system?

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Some people agree that Florida has a fantastic education system, but others vehemently disagree. So what do you think?

Do you agree with Governor DeSantis? Does Florida have the best education system in the country? Does keeping critical race theory out of schools hurt or hinder that system?