If you are looking for a home where grey matter matters, try the Green Mountain State of Vermont.

Trading places with Massachusetts, Vermont moved up from its No. 3 spot last year to be crowned "Smartest State," an award bestowed for each of the last four years by Morgan Quitno Press, the Lawrence, KS-based independent research and publishing company known for its "best" and "worst" lists -- for better or for worse.

For that matter, try other states in New England. Year-after-year the region dominates the smarts category. This year four of the five top smart spots went to states in the nation's far northeast corner.

Counting down from the top, Vermont was followed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin, Montana, and New York. New Jersey and New York's positions and Pennsylvania at No. 1, reveals a swath of smarts sweeping across the nation's greater Northeast.

"The Smartest State Award recognizes those states that are committed to students and teachers, emphasize excellence in the classroom and ensure that public elementary and secondary schools are efficiently-run," said Scott Morgan, press president.

The award is based on 21 positive and negative factors from "Education State Rankings," one of the press' annual reference books. It compares the 50 United States in hundreds of elementary and secondary education categories.

Factors include the percentage of high school graduates, reading, writing and math proficiency, attendance, percent of school-age kids in public schools, high school drop out rates, student-teacher ratios and class size, among others.

"Vermont shines in many key areas of education," said Morgan. "A high percentage of its students excel in reading, writing and math. In addition, schools in Vermont have smaller class sizes and lower pupil-teacher ratios than in most other states."

The Smartest State Award is one of six such "est" awards announced each year by Morgan Quitno Press -- and not without controversy.

It's a big horn-tooter to be named the best. Home buyers with families now or planned especially want a solid educational environments where they can call home. In many cases, as goes the local real estate market, so goes the area's economy.

On the other hand, a 'worst' label, when it comes to 'smarts' can, well, really smart.

Morgan also ferrets out the "Safest and Most Dangerous City and Metro Area," the "Most Livable State," the "Healthiest State," the "Safest and Most Dangerous States" and "Most Improved State."

Where there are smart states, not-so-smart states can't be far behind, er, rather they can be far behind.

From the bottom up, the 10 states bound to want to fire major spitballs at Morgan Quitno were also clustered geographically, but in the south and west.

The losers?

Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Louisiana, Alaska, Alabama, Hawaii, and Tennessee, Morgan Quitno reported.

They get detention.

Published: October 14, 2005

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.