Iowa one of Smartest States

A new set of rankings has nothing to do with the weekend’s college football victories, but Iowa is considered among the best-educated states in the nation. Iowa just missed a top-10 showing on the first-ever “Smartest States” survey. It placed Iowa 11th in the U-S, based on 21 factors like per-pupil spending, high school graduation rates, teacher salaries, class size and math proficiency. Scott Morgan, president of Morgan-Quitno Press, says Iowa had some super numbers. In addition to being among the top ten states in many key areas like reading and math, Morgan says Iowa also was number-one in one category with the lowest high school dropout rate in the nation. Connecticut ranked number-one while New Mexico was last. Of other states around Iowa, Wisconsin did the best at number 6, Minnesota is 12th, Missouri is 31st, while Illinois and South Dakota are 33rd and 34th, respectively. For more information, go to “www.morganquitno.com.”