In: Statistics and Probability
Eastern vs. Western States’ Spending on K-12 Education in 2014
Using the data below, compare how much the states East of the Mississippi spend on their K-12 students with how much states West of the Mississippi spend on their K-12 students. Make sure to create a numerical display (make a picture!), describe each distribution (in terms of shape, center and spread) and answer the question: who spends more?
Data in Desmos (Links to an external site.).
| 
 Eastern State  | 
 $ per Student  | 
 Western State  | 
 $ per Student  | 
|
| 
 Alabama  | 
 9,028  | 
 Alaska  | 
 18,416  | 
|
| 
 Connecticut  | 
 17,745  | 
 Arizona  | 
 7,528  | 
|
| 
 Delaware  | 
 13,938  | 
 Arkansas  | 
 9,616  | 
|
| 
 D.C.  | 
 18,485  | 
 California  | 
 9,595  | 
|
| 
 Florida  | 
 8,755  | 
 Colorado  | 
 8,985  | 
|
| 
 Georgia  | 
 9,202  | 
 Hawaii  | 
 12,485  | 
|
| 
 Illinois  | 
 13,077  | 
 Idaho  | 
 6,621  | 
|
| 
 Indiana  | 
 9,548  | 
 Iowa  | 
 10,688  | 
|
| 
 Kentucky  | 
 9,312  | 
 Kansas  | 
 9,972  | 
|
| 
 Maine  | 
 12,707  | 
 Louisiana  | 
 10,749  | 
|
| 
 Maryland  | 
 14,003  | 
 Minnesota  | 
 11,464  | 
|
| 
 Massachusetts  | 
 15,087  | 
 Missouri  | 
 9,875  | 
|
| 
 Michigan  | 
 11,110  | 
 Montana  | 
 11,017  | 
|
| 
 Mississippi  | 
 8,263  | 
 Nebraska  | 
 11,726  | 
|
| 
 New Hampshire  | 
 14,335  | 
 Nevada  | 
 8,414  | 
|
| 
 New Jersey  | 
 17,907  | 
 New Mexico  | 
 9,734  | 
|
| 
 New York  | 
 20,610  | 
 North Dakota  | 
 12,358  | 
|
| 
 North Carolina  | 
 8,512  | 
 Oklahoma  | 
 7,829  | 
|
| 
 Ohio  | 
 11,354  | 
 Oregon  | 
 9,945  | 
|
| 
 Pennsylvania  | 
 13,961  | 
 South Dakota  | 
 8,881  | 
|
| 
 Rhode Island  | 
 14,767  | 
 Texas  | 
 8,593  | 
|
| 
 South Carolina  | 
 9,732  | 
 Utah  | 
 6,500  | 
|
| 
 Tennessee  | 
 8,630  | 
 Washington  | 
 10,202  | 
|
| 
 Vermont  | 
 16,988  | 
 Wyoming  | 
 15,797  | 
|
| 
 Virginia  | 
 10,973  | 
|||
| 
 West Virginia  | 
 11,260  | 
|||
| 
 Wisconsin  | 
 11,186  | 
|||
In order to solve this question I used R software.
R codes and output:
>
east=c(9028,17745,13938,18485,8755,9202,13077,9548,9312,12707,14003,15087,11110,8263,14335,17907,20610,8512,11354,13961,14767,9732,8630,16988,10973,11260,11186)
>
west=c(18416,7528,9616,9595,8985,12485,6621,10688,9972,10749,11464,9875,11017,11726,8414,9734,12358,7829,9945,8881,8593,6500,10202,15797)
> summary(east)
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
8263 9430 11350 12610 14550 20610
> summary(west)
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
6500 8809 9910 10290 11130 18420
> sd(east)
[1] 3515.675
> sd(west)
[1] 2662.431
> par(mfrow=c(1,2))
> hist(east)
> hist(west)
Numerical display of data:
> summary(east)
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
8263 9430 11350 12610 14550 20610
> summary(west)
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
6500 8809 9910 10290 11130 18420
Here we see that eastern state has maximum average spend on their K-12 students compared to western state .
Mean spent by eastern state = 12610
Mean spent by western state = 10290

Shape of both distribution is positively skewed.
Mode of both the distribution is lies between 8000 to 10000.
Eastern state spend more amount than western states.