Special Report

This is the Worst School District in Nebraska

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 24, 2021 8:00 am

Every child is born to a unique set of circumstances. And it is these different social, familial, economic, environmental, and many other factors, that help shape who they become. While these conditions are countless, a handful of factors play an outsized role in a child’s development and likelihood for future success — including academic success.

Whether or not a child succeeds academically can depend considerably on school quality. A student who falls behind in one school district might have excelled academically in another. By no means limited to the classroom, many of the strongest influences on a child’s future are in the home environment, and the resources available or absent there.

The Lexington Public School district, located in south-central Nebraska, ranks as the worst district in the state. Children with college-educated parents or guardians are more likely to succeed academically than children with less educated parents, and in the Lexington district, only 12.5% of adults have a bachelor’s degree, less than half the 31.3% share of adults across Nebraska.

While the relationship between school spending and academic outcomes is complicated, greater investment can provide students with considerable advantages. In Lexington, however, per pupil spending totals just $11,971 a year, about $800 less than the state average.

The four measures used to determine the worst school district in every state are: the child poverty rate, the teacher-to-student ratio, per-pupil spending, and the share of adults with a college education. All data came from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics. This is the worst school district in every state.