US States Leading the Way in Educational Innovation in 2024

With new innovations in education providing equitable access to learning, improving creativity, and promoting teamwork, the future of the educational sector looks bright.

Thanks to hybrid and virtual technologies like Zoom, for example, schools are able to hold classes without disruption when people are sick and provide education access to more students.

To highlight the states innovating the most in their education systems and the ones that have more work to do, the non-profit organization SmileHub released a study report on the States Leading the Way in Educational Innovation.

SmileHub compared each of the 50 states based on 14 key metrics. The data set ranged from test-optional universities per capita to full-time virtual schools per capita to the adoption of K-12 computer science policies.

Key Study Findings:

• Texas has the most schools that offer advanced placement courses per capita – 6.7 times more than in Delaware, which has the fewest schools. Advanced placement programs enable willing and academically prepared students to pursue college-level studies while still in high school.

   

• California has the most creative workspaces per capita – 18.4 times more than in Mississippi, which has the fewest creative workspaces. Creative workspaces, or makerspaces, are a collaborative workspace inside a school, library, or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.

   

• California also has the most education charities per capita – 8.3 times more than in New Hampshire, which has the fewest charities.

Top 10 Most Innovative & Least Innovative US States in Their Education Systems

The study determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states. 

Here’re the states innovating the most in their education systems and the ones that have more work to do:

States Leading the Way in Educational Innovation - Infographic