California in Education

Isn't it so weird how California is 48th in Education for elementry through high school in the United States. That means those "ignorant" southern states have better schools than us, yet we are the richest, most buisiness qualitifed state and we include some of the best Univercities in all of America.
Here is my theory on why we suck so much.
BEcause of the population in the state and the high attendance of students in schools the state must have to be ranked lower. I believe that most probably the percentage of kids going to schools is higher than alot of states. Also the population issue presents a problem in the fact that there are bigger classrooms. If there were more smaller classroom of maybe 10-15 students, then the ranking in education would increase dramatically. However, when we have some 30 about average in every class, that totally makes it harder on the teacher to teach every student. This year I was a babysitter/teacher for two grades. A third grade classroom in which the class held 34 students and a fourth grade classroom where the class held eight students. The fourth grade class was much more engaged and payed so much more attention to the subject.
I think the key for California s climb to the top of education will be to attain more teachers making the class average to fifteen students per class.