What state is dead last in K-12 educational performance? Census Bureau says...

Each year the Census Bureau compiles data on how the 50 states and various races perform on various measures of what might loosely be called "civilized behavior."  It's called the  American Community Survey.

One of the measurements tracked is the percentage of every state's residents 25 and older who haven't graduated from high school (and presumably won't, being over 24 years old).

What state would you guess had the highest percentage of people in this category?  Surely Mississippi, Alabama or Arkansas, right?  Cuz they're states near the bottom of income, tax receipts and the amount they spend on education.

Yeah, that's what you'd think.  Cuz "everyone knows" that educational results are directly proportional to the amount of money a state spends, right?  But turns out the state with the highest percentage of people over 24 who haven't graduated from high school is...wait for it...California.

Wait...that can't possibly be right.  Must be a typo.

Yeh, dat's it.

Interesting, cuz last year California had the same ranking.

Even more worrisome, California also ranked dead last for the percentage of residents 25 or older who have at least finished the 9th grade.  Almost ten percent of the state's residents 25 or older never finished the 9th grade.

What career choices are available to someone who drops out before completing the 9th grade?

And as with the percentage of highschool graduates, California had the same ranking in this second category last year too.  Must be another typo, eh?

Now, since California is virtually tied for spending the most on K-12 education (matching NY and Illinois), what do you suppose could explain the state's dead-last rankings on these two critical measures of performance?  Certainly can't be a shortage of qualified teachers.  What could it be?

It's a mystery, eh?

Wait, no it's not.  It's Trump's fault.  Yeah, dat's it.