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So, I work in education, and while I’m in my first certified position right now, I’ve been involved in a wide range of school districts over the past decade, since graduating from a public high school (in 2004 in a DRG H), and it’s been fascinating to see the extreme differences between schools and districts that are geographically very close to one another. Connecticut is interesting in public education because we have the widest achievement gap in the United States, measured by standardized test scores and high school graduation rates. Connecticut doesn’t make the list of Top 5 and Bottom 5 states in education, but if you took the top 80% of districts in CT, we’d be in first place, and if you took the bottom 80% of districts in CT, we’d be in last place.
CT’s school districts are divided up into 9 District Reference Groups (DRGs) lettered A through I. The groups are determined by things like access to resources, median income, amount spent on education per pupil, graduation rates, test scores, et cetera. DRG A is essentially made up of communities with more millionaire than non-millionaire families, and DRG I is made up of families with whose students are close to 100% below the poverty line. One of the reasons Connecticut has such a high achievement gap is because our schools are funded almost entirely from local municipal taxes, rather than by County or Connecticut Associaition of Boards of Education (CABE) Area.
See if you can find a DRG I or DRG H that is IMMEDIATELY next to or surrounded by DRGs A and/or B.