Connecticut’s education outcomes are the second most racially segregated in the nation, according to a new study by WalletHub. The study compared disparities in standardized testing and degrees held by various racial groups to determine racial segregation.
Connecticut ranked second to last across all states, driven by the largest gap in the share of White versus Black adults who earned at least a bachelor’s degree by the age of 25.
Connecticut also ranked forty-fifth for the greatest racial gap between standardized test scores, thirty-sixth for the largest racial gap in high school graduation rates, and thirty-third for the greatest gap between White and Black adults with at least a high school degree.
While Connecticut’s overall ranking was second-worst in the nation, the rest of southern New England also ranked poorly. Overall, Massachusetts ranked forty-second, and Rhode Island ranked thirty-fifth. By contrast, northern New England scored much higher, with Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all ranking in the top 15 states for the least racially segregated educational outcomes.
WalletHub’s study used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Center for Educational Statistics, the College Board, and ACT. It followed a study from Brown University that found school financing reform over the past several decades has not erased racial funding gaps and in some cases has increased funding inequity.
Racial segregation has long been an issue in Hartford public schools after the Connecticut Supreme Court found in its 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill ruling that the city’s school system was racially segregated and violated the state constitution. While the state created a magnet school system and a lottery process that allows families to apply to have their children attend another school, the state has struggled to comply with a series of stipulated agreements aimed at eliminating segregation in Hartford schools.
In 2022, the court issued a ten-year injunction requiring CSDE to comply with a Comprehensive School Choice Program (CCP), aimed in part at ensuring the lottery formula used to place children in Hartford schools sufficiently weighted racial minorities. In an unusual decision in 2025, the New Britain Superior Court ruled the formula is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). While CSDE had claimed a FOIA exemption related to trade secrets, the court ruled the formula is exempt because Sheff is still pending litigation, an argument that had not been raised during the court case.
In December 2025, CSDE announced it had exceeded the first major benchmark in the Sheff settlement by meeting placement demand for 96 percent of Hartford families who had applied for a seat outside the city school system.
Under the terms of the CCP, Hartford must meet 95 percent of families’ demand for placement outside the Hartford school system, in either an interdistrict magnet school, Open Choice district, or in Hartford Region Connecticut Technical Education and Career System high schools.
As part of the CCP, CSDE is supposed to work to increase enrollment capacity in alternative schools, adding up to 882 additional seats above 2020-2021 Hartford-resident enrollments by the 2028-2029 school year. CSDE is supposed to meet 100 percent of placement demand for Hartford families that same year.
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