Does Tennessee have one of the best school systems in the nation? See how it ranked on this list

Date:2025-07-26 22:19:01 Category:US Views:4 Comment:0

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — How well is Tennessee educating students?

A new study by WalletHub, a personal finance company, is ranking public school systems from state to state.

According to WalletHub, most families can’t afford to place their children in private or preparatory schools, which leaves public education as the only option.

| Check out more lists and rankings from across Tennessee →

However, when it comes to the quality of public school systems, the study found that funding can affect performance.

“Getting enough funding is essential for a productive school system, but simply having more money doesn’t guarantee success. How funds are applied also plays a big role in how good a school system is, as does the quality of educators, other professionals and the curriculum,” said Chip Lupo, an analyst with Wallethub.

To determine the top-performing school systems, analysts compared public education school systems from state to state across the 32 metrics, which included: funding, safety, class size and instructor credentials.

Tennessee students show improvements on TCAP test

The Volunteer State came in at No. 26 on WalletHub’s list. According to the study, public school systems in Tennessee placed in the top 20 when it came to quality, ranking at 14. In addition, analysts found the state has one of the lowest dropout rates.

Earlier this month, the Tennessee Department of Education released TCAP results, which showed that students in the Volunteer State showed signs of academic progress. In fact, the results revealed that improvements were seen across all subjects for grades three through eight.

However, the state did not fare well in the safety metric, ranking near the bottom at No. 45. To measure the safety score, researchers said they looked at bullying rates, youth incarceration rates, share of armed students, share of high school students participating in violence and the number of school shootings, among other factors.

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When it comes to safe school school systems, Tennessee joined Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Mississippi and Missouri at the bottom of the list.