New Report Ranks States With ‘Biggest Bullying Problems'

As students in Illinois begin another school year, the topic of bullying unfortunately becomes too real for some.

Personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an analysis of 2016’s states with the biggest bullying problems and Illinois ranked no. 23.

The report compared data from 45 states and the District of Columbia across 17 key metrics to make up three categories including Bullying Prevalence, Bullying Impact and Treatment and Anti-Bullying Laws.

The study found Michigan had the biggest problem of the states analyzed. It was followed by Louisiana, West Virginia, Montana and Arkansas. 

According to the National Education Association, more than 160,000 children miss school every day out of fear of being bullied. Bullying occurs once every seven minutes and in schools across America, one in three students report being bullied weekly, the NEA reports.

The average public school can acquire more than $2.3 million in lost funding and expenses as a result of low attendance and disciplinary actions according to the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

In 2010, the state of Illinois created the Prevent School Violence Act (PSVA) that made bullying in schools explicitly prohibited and requires that schools create and maintain policies on bullying. The PSVA made several modifications to the existing law Public Act 98-0349 that required school districts to develop and implement policies on bullying during the 2007-2008 school year. The policies were to be updated every two years and filed with the Illinois State Board of Education.

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Illinois then modified the law in 2014 and again in 2015 adding cyber-bullying to the prohibition on bullying in schools.

Below is a list of states with the biggest bullying problems as well as the states with the lowest bullying problems according to WalletHub.