U.S. Public Schools: Louisiana Ranks The Lowest, But Bullying Is Still The Worst Problem In America
An interesting report on the U.S. school system recently revealed the ranking of public schools across the nation. The study was conducted by the personal finance social network Wallet Hub, using 21 key measurements to determine the level of quality and safety of the public schools in the United States. Some of the key measurements focus on bullying, as it has become a big problem in the U.S. public schools.
In the report, Lousiana is placed at the bottom in both quality and safety level. In term of quality, the survey reveals that public schools in Lousiana scored the lowest in both Math and Reading test scores. Other states that also had the lowest score are Mississipi, New Mexico, District of Columbia and Alabama. While Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Hampshire ranked the top three in those two tests.
In regard for students’ safety, Lousiana ranked at the bottom five in the percentage of injured and threatened of high school students. In term of bullying incident rate, Louisiana is better than Montana, Michigan and West Virginia that registered to have the worst bullying incident. However, that does not mean other states are free from bullying incidents.
One surprising result is that California is listed to have the highest pupil-teacher ratio, which means one public school teacher in California has to handle more students than the other states. While the lowest pupil-teacher ratio is recorded in Vermont, North Dakota, and New Jersey. The higher ratio of student and teacher will open the opportunity of bullying. Therefore, the survey also focused on some measurements specific to bullying in regard for student safety, as bullying has become the worst problem in the U.S. public school.
The latest incident of cyber bullying was reported last month in New Jersey, taking toll of the life of an accomplished student. On June 21, a 12-year-old student in Rockaway Township, Mallory Grossman committed suicide after she was bullied via Snapchat for months. Following her death, her parents sued the school district for “gross negligence in failing to stop the cyber bullying” that led to her suicide.
Before file a lawsuit against the Rockaway Township school district, her parents had reported to her school about the cyber bullying she had experienced, but her school did not make any immediate action. On the day of her suicide, they made another complaint, but the school still did not respond.
Cyber bullying has become the worst problem in U.S. schools. According to the data from Bureau of Justice Statistics and Cyberbullying Research Center at the US Department of Health and Human Services, 52 percent of students in America have reported of being cyber bullied, but more than half of them decided to keep quiet and not report the bullying they experienced to their parents.
To solve the cyber bullying problem in U.S. public school, we need to understand the negative effect of this cyber bullying. Parents and teachers also need to work together to prevent it. Watch how a 15-year-old Trisha Prabhu explained the effect and how to prevent cyber bullying in the TEDx video below.
[Featured Image by maroke/ThinkStock Images]
