Three years have passed since lawmakers celebrated passing a budget that aimed to narrow the disparities in school spending by ZIP code by funneling millions more each year to struggling districts.
But that $61 million infusion into the state’s primary education grant hasn’t come close to helping the state’s poorest towns keep up with the increased spending in the state’s wealthiest districts.
The state had one of the largest disparities in education spending between predominantly white and predominantly nonwhite districts, according to an analysis of 2016 fiscal year spending generated by EdBuild, a national think tank that advocates for school funding that levels the playing field.