US News 2014 Best States for Education

Below is a chart from the US News website, which determined that the state with the top high schools was Maine, followed by California then Connecticut. The schools rankings were determined based off of a College Readiness Index that was calculate by AP tests taken, AP tests passed, and he number of students who participated in IB. It's important to keep in mind that the schools eligible for ranking had to have a large enough 12th grade, have AP and/or IB programs, and had to perform better than the state's average proficiency tests. They then accounted for the disadvantaged students' scores and ranked them accordingly. You can read more in depth about the methodology here.



Top Ranking

State rank	State	Number of eligible high schools*	Total number of gold medal schools	Percent of schools with gold medals	Total number of silver medal schools	Percent of schools with silver medals	Total number of gold and silver medals	Percent of schools with gold and silver medals
1	ME	90	4	4.4%	16	17.8%	20	22.2%
2	CA	1,872	105	5.6%	310	16.6%	415	22.2%
3	CT	188	17	9.0%	20	10.6%	37	19.7%
4	MA	341	22	6.5%	41	12.0%	63	18.5%
5	MD	228	13	5.7%	29	12.7%	42	18.4%
6	NH	83	0	0.0%	13	15.7%	13	15.7%
7	VA	319	20	6.3%	28	8.8%	48	15.0%
8	OH	824	22	2.7%	93	11.3%	115	14.0%
9	TX	1,382	54	3.9%	135	9.8%	189	13.7%
10	CO	331	14	4.2%	31	9.4%	45	13.6%
11	VT	59	0	0.0%	8	13.6%	8	13.6%
12	NY	1,136	55	4.8%	99	8.7%	154	13.6%
13	FL	602	29	4.8%	52	8.6%	81	13.5%
14	DC	31	2	6.5%	2	6.5%	4	12.9%
15	WA	433	9	2.1%	46	10.6%	55	12.7%
16	IN	362	4	1.1%	41	11.3%	45	12.4%
17	GA	414	17	4.1%	34	8.2%	51	12.3%
18	KY	229	5	2.2%	23	10.0%	28	12.2%
19	AK	82	0	0.0%	10	12.2%	10	12.2%
20	NJ	383	25	6.5%	19	5.0%	44	11.5%
21	IL	628	19	3.0%	53	8.4%	72	11.5%
22	AZ	378	8	2.1%	35	9.3%	43	11.4%
23	NC	329	2	0.6%	34	10.3%	36	10.9%
24	RI	49	1	2.0%	4	8.2%	5	10.2%
25	NV	73	1	1.4%	6	8.2%	7	9.6%
26	OR	283	4	1.4%	22	7.8%	26	9.2%
27	NM	160	3	1.9%	11	6.9%	14	8.8%
28	PA	674	7	1.0%	49	7.3%	56	8.3%
29	HI	49	0	0.0%	4	8.2%	4	8.2%
30	MT	37	1	2.7%	2	5.4%	3	8.1%
31	AR	273	1	0.4%	21	7.7%	22	8.1%
32	DE	25	0	0.0%	2	8.0%	2	8.0%
33	MN	518	7	1.4%	34	6.6%	41	7.9%
34	MI	780	10	1.3%	50	6.4%	60	7.7%
35	WI	446	2	0.4%	32	7.2%	34	7.6%
36	SC	207	2	1.0%	12	5.8%	14	6.8%
37	ID	166	1	0.6%	10	6.0%	11	6.6%
38	WY	62	0	0.0%	4	6.5%	4	6.5%
39	WV	112	0	0.0%	7	6.3%	7	6.3%
40	OK	281	4	1.4%	11	3.9%	15	5.3%
41	TN	333	4	1.2%	13	3.9%	17	5.1%
42	AL	356	3	0.8%	12	3.4%	15	4.2%
43	IA	334	0	0.0%	12	3.6%	12	3.6%
44	UT	148	1	0.7%	4	2.7%	5	3.4%
45	MO	473	2	0.4%	13	2.7%	15	3.2%
46	NE	170	0	0.0%	4	2.4%	4	2.4%
47	KS	109	0	0.0%	2	1.8%	2	1.8%
48	SD	122	0	0.0%	2	1.6%	2	1.6%
49	LA	301	0	0.0%	3	1.0%	3	1.0%
50	MS	244	0	0.0%	1	0.4%	1	0.4%
51	ND	104	0	0.0%	0	0.0%	0	0.0%