Nationally, SC’s school system ranks low. Here’s which states came in even lower

In a study ranking states by the quality of their public schools, South Carolina ranked 40th overall.

Ranking 46 in safety and 40 in quality, the Palmetto State ranked higher than states such as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the WalletHub study.

Researchers compared factors like schools making the U.S News & World Report’s Top 700 schools list, high school graduation rate for low-income students, dropout rate and various test scores to examine quality. As for safety, study authors took a look at things like the number of threatened or injured high school students, students who have access to drugs and the number of armed high school students.

South Carolina made some other notable rankings on the study.

Overall, the state ranked 41st for the highest percentage of high school students who were threatened or injured, according to the study. South Carolina did not show up as one of the highest bullying rate states.

In a six-way tie, South Carolina also was ranked one of the lowest states when it comes to median ACT Score.

Here are the states that appeared lower on the list than South Carolina:

41. Arkansas

42. West Virginia

43. Oregon

44. Alabama

45. Mississippi

46. Nevada

47. Arizona

48. Alaska

49. District of Columbia

50: Louisiana

51. New Mexico

This story was originally published July 30, 2018 at 7:48 AM.