by Ryan Albano ‘27 & Joe Youngblood ‘27
Last updated on December 5, 2025
for Data Visualization for Allwith Prof. Jack DoughertyTrinity College, Hartford CT, USA
Are Connecticut and Massachusetts distributing education funding equitably across their public school districts? This analysis examines whether spending per student varies dramatically between districts, whether higher-poverty schools receive more funding to address their students' additional needs, and whether different types of schools traditional public, charter, and specialized districts receive comparable resources. By comparing these two neighboring states with reputations for strong education systems, we can understand whether their funding models actually deliver fair opportunities to all students.
Spending per student represents the total dollars a district invests in one child's education each year, encompassing everything from teacher salaries and textbooks to building maintenance and transportation. This figure matters because funding levels often determine education quality, yet money doesn't always flow where it's needed most. This analysis examines three key questions: Do vast disparities exist in what different districts spend per student? Do higher-poverty schools, identified through free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, receive more funding to address their students' additional needs? And do traditional public schools, charter schools, and specialized districts receive comparable resources? Understanding these patterns reveals whether Connecticut and Massachusetts fund education equitably or whether some students face systemic disadvantages before they even enter the classroom.
This data story focuses on the broad examination of the comparison between Massachusetts and Connecticut School District spending, with a concentration on the following questions:
How does spending per student vary across public school districts in CT and MA?
How does it vary by percent of lower-income students (eligible for free or reduced lunch)?
This investigation matters deeply to communities, families, and policymakers because education funding shapes children's futures and either perpetuates or disrupts cycles of inequality. When high-poverty districts receive less funding than wealthy ones, students who already face obstacles at home food insecurity, unstable housing, limited access to healthcare also encounter fewer experienced teachers, larger class sizes, outdated materials, and crumbling facilities at school. Understanding these funding patterns helps community advocates push for fairer formulas, allows parents to see whether their district is under-resourced, and gives voters concrete information when deciding on budgets and leadership. Moreover, by comparing Connecticut and Massachusetts, communities can learn from each other's successes and failures, identifying which funding approaches actually narrow opportunity gaps versus those that merely maintain the status quo. In a democratic society that promises equal opportunity, how we fund schools remains one of the most consequential decisions we make about our collective future.
When comparing district spending, it is important to consider the number of districts in each state. In the 2023–24 academic year, Massachusetts had 302 public school districts, with an average per-pupil expenditure of $21,885 (Massachusetts Department of Education). Connecticut had 169 districts, with an average per-pupil spending of approximately $22,054 for the same year (Connecticut School & State Finance Project).
This table shows the highest Per Pupil Expenditures in Massachusetts public school districts. Pronvicetown has the highest PPE, spending roughly $48,000 per student. What is interesting to note however, is that the districts with the highest PPE typically have a smaller student demographic, evidently eight out of the eleven highest PPE districts have less than five hundred students.
This table highlights the Connecticut public school districts with the highest per-pupil expenditures. Notably, the three districts at the top are not traditional school districts, yet they still appear in Connecticut’s official district records. Regardless, Connecticut’s highest spending public school district is higher than Massachusetts.
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The scatterplot shows the relationship between Massachusetts Per Pupil Expenditure and the percentage of low income students in each school district. The correlation between the two variables is .1, signifying that there is barely any relationship between the two variables however the trend line appears positive. The biggest outlier is Provincetown whose PPE is around $48,000 and the percentage of low income students is about 40%.
The scatterplot shows the relationship between Connecticut Per Pupil Expenditure and the percentage of low income students in each school district. The scatterplot shows a correlation of -.16, contrasted to Massachusetts’ scatterplot, Connecticut has a negative trend line. Due to the three non-school districts, Connecticut has substantially more outliers such as EdAdvance whose percentage of eligible free/reduced lunch is 67.3% and their PPE is $59,528.
The map below shows the two main types of school districts across Massachusetts: traditional public school districts and charter school districts. Public districts are operated by cities, towns, or regional authorities and governed by local school committees. Charter schools operate as independent public schools under charters granted by the state.
The map below shows the two main types of school districts across Connecticut: traditional public school districts and charter school districts. Public districts are operated by cities, towns, or regional authorities and governed by local or regional boards of education. Charter schools are authorized by the State Board of Education and operate independently with governing boards comprised of teachers, parents, and community members.
All Massachusetts data comes from the Massachusetts Department of Education, which provides a detailed spreadsheet breaking down district-level expenditures. The final column of this spreadsheet reports each district’s per-pupil expenditure.
Connecticut's EdSight does a helpful job breaking up school finance data by sections. This allowed us to obtain data regarding PPE, Free/Reduced Lunch and Distrct type.
Connecticut’s data comes from EdSight, which reports the exact number of students eligible for free or reduced-pricelunch, a standard measure of student poverty. Massachusetts does not provide this data and instead reports the percentage of students classified as low income. Because the two measures are defined differently, we cannot directly compare free/reduced lunch eligibility across states and must rely on Massachusetts’s low-income percentage instead.
The per-pupil expenditure tables are based on the 2023–2024 school year for both states, while the data used in the scatterplots comes from the 2024–2025 school year.
To calculate the correlation for both scatterplots, we used Google Sheets’ Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient. There were some districts that did not provide PPE which forced us to discard five districts from Connecticut and four districts from Massachusetts.
https://www.doe.mass.edu/
https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/ppx.aspx https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/selectedpopulations.aspx Connecticuthttps://public-edsight.ct.gov/?utm_
https://public-edsight.ct.gov/overview/per-pupil-expenditures-by-function---district?language=en_US