Even more specific, according to The National Assessment of Educational Progress, Connecticut’s poverty achievement gap was among the worst five states in the country on one educational test and was the very worst in the country on the other three educational exams (Zimmer and Hodgson 2015). Before delving into the shortcomings of the current Connecticut system it is critical to understand how the system works. Currently “Connecticut provides education aid to towns and schools through a complicated network of grants. The biggest component is the formula-driven Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grants, listed in the state’s budget under “Education Equalization Grants”” (Zimmer and Hodgson 2015). The ECS system uses a formula to allocate grants to its towns. The formula, as explained in Improving the Equity and Efficiency of Connecticut’s State K-12 Education Funding, that is used is that each town is first given $11,525 as a base for each student. The $11,525 base is then multiplied by the amount of students that will be attending the public schools and are also awarded either …show more content…
In the 2013-2014 year, the minimum aid ratio ensured that 32 of the 169 towns receiving grants under the ECS program received more state funding than they otherwise would have under the ECS funding formula alone.” (Zimmer and Hodgson