This is somewhat similar to a post I did on mining education data back in February—clearly, the topic is a real interest of mine.
Propublica, with its story package titled, “The Opportunity Gap,” has taken data on public school districts fairly similar to that offered by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, but the nonprofit news organization made a conscious effort to make the data more social:
Sharing — the Facebook aspect of the app — is a big part of the behavior ProPublica’s news apps team wanted to encourage for its users…One small-but-key feature: With that integration, users who are signed into Facebook can generate an individual URL for each cluster of data they dig up — the Cambridge [MA]-versus-Medfield-versus-Lawrence comparison, say — to make sharing and referencing the data almost seamless. The resulting page has a “share on Facebook” button along with a note: “Use this hashtag to share your insights on Twitter: #myschoolyourschool.”
Since last time I was a bit nepotistic in picking my own high school, this time I looked at data from schools close to where my family currently lives—Dallas, Texas.
W.T. White high school would be our local public school. The percentage of students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty, is 68 percent—well below the average of 86 percent for Dallas Independent School District as a whole (side note: seriously? Eighty-six percent? And this is the state that voted to cut $4 billion from the education budget).
If you look at the custom link I created, comparing nearby schools, there is one surprising data point: Highland Park high school, a mere seven miles and 15-minute drive away, has zero kids on free or reduced-price lunch. More kids, though, at W.T. White take advanced math. I would love to find out why—perhaps a Jaime Escalante (of Stand and Deliver fame) is at work?
In order to paint the full picture of Dallas high schools, you would need to include private school data. I’ve yet to find a database for that. A goal for the future, to be sure.