First of all, any state that keeps electing the Kennedies can't be all that bright.

Second, from the original story:

The Smartest State Award is based on 21 factors that compare the 50 states in more than 400 elementary and secondary education categories. Factors considered include per pupil expenditures, public high school graduation rates, average class size, student reading, writing and math proficiency, and pupil-teacher ratios and teacher salaries as a percent of average annual pay.

Of all those factors, the only one that actually has any relationship to intelligence is student reading, writing, and math proficiency. The rest all all related to education spending. If you want to rank states by "smartness", why not go straight to academic performance?

High school graduation rates aren't a reliable measure of academic achievement because the standards for graduation vary so widely from state to state. In an era of social promotions, all a diploma really means is that a student completed K-12 without quitting. In some states, high graduation rates are more an example of "CSOC's Law*" than real achievement. That's why one of the fastest growing areas on colleges is remedial education.

* I coined CSOC's Law back in 1986 when I was working activation issues for the Consolidate Space Operations Center. The law is applicable to many things. It goes:

"Anything is possible if you lower your standards far enough."

I could've claimed it as Larry's Fourth Law but felt that CSOC's Law better described it.