sad, Iowa ranked #30 in education

**erikbj** · 07-11-2012, 06:58 AM

Growing up Iowa was always in the top 3-4.........now 30???? What happened?

News Headlines

**Daserop** · 07-11-2012, 07:04 AM

I don't know. Went to Catholic school until 6th grade and switched to the public school. My 7th and 8th grade years in public school were complete review. It was really sad.

**Bamacyclone** · 07-11-2012, 07:09 AM

[QUOTE=erikbj;2945433]Growing up Iowa was always in the top 3-4.........now 30???? What happened?

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over these type of studies. All depends on what metrics you choose to include and weighting. Notice they include spending. From the states ranked at the top, I assure you their stategy is the more money you throw at education system, the better educated a student you get. I believe we now have many years of data showing money does not buy results directly.

**MNCYWX** · 07-11-2012, 07:15 AM

[quote=Bamacyclone;2945439]

Originally Posted by erikbj

Growing up Iowa was always in the top 3-4.........now 30???? What happened?

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over these type of studies. All depends on what metrics you choose to include and weighting. Notice they include spending. From the states ranked at the top, I assure you their stategy is the more money you throw at education system, the better educated a student you get. I believe we now have many years of data showing money does not buy results directly.

Hit the nail right on the head.

**bfross** · 07-11-2012, 07:17 AM

Originally Posted by erikbj

Growing up Iowa was always in the top 3-4.........now 30???? What happened?

I'm not sure, but I moved to Cedar Rapids several years back and I'd swear kids don't even go to school around here sometimes. I see high school kids out and about at all hours of the day. Always seems like they have in-services and "holidays" as well. I assume they have to still go the same number of days total, but I graduated in '99 and we didn't get a spring break then like they do now. There's also several bus stops on my road and I see kids that are well over the kindergarten age getting off the bus around noon like they're only going half a day or something. I don't have kids though, so I'm really not privy to the actual school system schedule around CR, but I don't get a great impression of it.

That being said, this list has Minnesota at 11, and it always seemed like they were #1 or 2 most years in rankings that I could remember.

**MrPeske** · 07-11-2012, 07:19 AM

When I clicked on the Iowa link, it shows SAT 1777/2400. Most college bound kids from Iowa take the ACT. Wonder what our rating could be if they used the ACT instead.

This metric (Bama points out above) is a poor indicator.

**IzzoClone** · 07-11-2012, 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by Daserop

I don't know. Went to Catholic school until 6th grade and switched to the public school. My 7th and 8th grade years in public school were complete review. It was really sad.

My son has always said the same thing.

**ISUCubswin** · 07-11-2012, 07:23 AM

Most states have reformed to improve their students education, Iowa hasn't done anything.

**cyclone101** · 07-11-2012, 07:34 AM

Being a recent graduate of high school, I can see why. High school was a complete joke. At least my high school was.

**HFCS** · 07-11-2012, 07:38 AM

Originally Posted by Daserop

I don't know. Went to Catholic school until 6th grade and switched to the public school. My 7th and 8th grade years in public school were complete review. It was really sad.

I moved to Nebraska in 6th grade and that was a year of review compared to Iowa schools. Moved back in high school and it was more advanced, especially in math.

**cyclonespiker33** · 07-11-2012, 07:40 AM

I went to school in CR a few years back. My high school was rated in the top 150 public schools in the nation along with another CR school every year. I'm guessing that the smaller schools are what bring down the ranking a little.

**Trainer** · 07-11-2012, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by ISUCubswin

Most states have reformed to improve their students education, Iowa hasn't done anything.

This is pretty much it. A lot of the states that were not perennial top ten states for education have asked them selves, "What do we need to do to improve?" Iowa has pretty much stagnated for some time now. I am just getting into the education field and it has been an eye opening experience.

**Al_4_State** · 07-11-2012, 07:42 AM

I went to a Catholic high school, and it was light years ahead of the public schools I had attended. I kind of factored some of that to it being in a larger, wealthier city with more resources available to it. It was great preparation for college though, because we had a collegiate schedule, and had to write papers constantly for most of our classes. By the time I got to college, writing papers on a weekly basis was old hat.

**Clonefan94** · 07-11-2012, 08:00 AM

The fact that Illinois is above Iowa on that list has me pretty skeptical. I know that this is a statewide thing, but there is so much crap schooling going on in Chicago, it really should weight the system down a lot more. The burbs have some decent schools, but there are some burbs that seem pretty far behind, at least compared to what I grew up with in Iowa.

**mike4cy** · 07-11-2012, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by erikbj

Growing up Iowa was always in the top 3-4.........now 30???? What happened? News Headlines

Ok I will bite. I would venture a guess that a rising number of impoverished families moving into new low income properties in many areas of the state isn't helping much. That and Iowa's education hit status quo and went stagnant.