A new ranking of the best high schools in the country is offering the latest assessment of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s leadership on education in the Great Lakes State.

Rankings released by U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday shows only two Michigan high schools ranked in the top 20 for best overall high schools, and only one in the top 10.

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The media company evaluated 673 Michigan high schools and 17,660 nationwide based on six weighted factors that measure student performance on state assessments and how well schools prepare students for college.

The data from the 2021-22 school year includes college readiness, college curriculum breadth, state assessment proficiency, state assessment performance, underserved student performance, and graduation rate.

“The 2024 Best High Schools rankings offer a starting point for parents to understand a school’s academic performance, whether it’s a prospective school or one that their child is already attending,” LaMont Jones, managing editor of education at U.S. News, told The Detroit News. “Accessible data on our high schools can empower families across the country as they navigate today’s educational environment and plan for the future.”

The overarching message to parents in Michigan: schools are sliding compared to other states.

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“Michigan ranked 31^st in a comparison of states with the highest percentage of top-ranked public high schools, dropping five spots from its ranking last year of 26^th when it tied with Kentucky,” according to the news site.

Massachusetts, the top ranked state, has 43.9% of eligible high schools in the top 25% of the rankings. Connecticut has 42.9%. New Jersey has 42.1%. In Maryland, it’s 39%, and in Florida 37.4%.

Michigan has a mere 22%.

Only three Michigan schools made the top 100: eighth-ranked International Academy in Bloomfield Hills, 13^th ranked International Academy of Macomb in Clinton Township, and 44^th ranked City High Middle School in Grand Rapids.

Just 25 Michigan schools made the top 1,000 nationally, MLive reports.

The new rankings come as Whitmer is pushing to create a “universal” preK-14 government education system in Michigan her cheerleaders at the state teacher’s union describe as an “absolute game changer.”

The plan includes a 2.5% funding increase, “free community college” for high school graduates, “free” universal preschool, “free” school lunches, and redirecting $670 from state pensions to public school employees, Bridge Michigan reports.

Those taxpayer expenses follow record education spending in recent years that has so far failed to help students recover from Whitmer-imposed school closures during the pandemic. At the current pace of recover, according to one analysis, it could take students decades to return to prepandemic proficiency in reading.

“As governor, I’m proud of the record bipartisan investments we have made in order to help our kids read,” Whitmer posted to X last month. “We tripled the number of literacy coaches, raised per-pupil funding to all-time highs so students have more classroom resources, and funded before and after programs, including personalized tutoring.”

The results speak for themselves.

During Whitmer’s tenure, fourth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress plummeted from 32^nd nationally in 2019 to 43^rd in 2022.

As it stands now, only about 41.6% of third-graders are proficient in reading, a figure that’s at 16% for black third-graders, or more than 10% behind students still learning English at 26.4%, according to 2022 data.

A report from the governor’s own Growing Michigan Together Council found the state is “lagging behind” others with less than 33% of fourth- and eighth-grade students testing proficient in reading or math.