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TOOLS: URBAN SCHOOL NEED MAP
The Urban School Needs Map is an information visualization tool that has been developed for the Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco Bay Area public schools.
The tool can help you visually compare schools in a geographic area based on variables such as Academic Performance Indicators, student to teacher ratios, no. of students passing the Math Regents etc. The tool has been developed by Density Design – an information visualization research group at the Polytechnic of Milan.
Version of the tool that helps you choose the right school in a particular neighborhood
Some examples of scatter plots and what comparisons they enable are given below:
SCHOOL TYPE (X AXIS) VS. API (Y AXIS)
Dimension of the dot = Teacher to Student ratio
The scatter plot compares schools by type – elementary (red), charter (green), continuation (blue), high (magenta) and middle (yellow). The user can identify high and low performing schools by looking at the position of the schools on the y‐axis (API).
TEACHER EXPERIENCE (X AXIS) VS. NO. OF STUDENTS (Y AXIS)
Dimension of the dot = API
The scatter plot shows that most schools have teachers with 9‐15 years of experience. Charter schools (green) tend to have teachers with fewer years of experience although there doesn’t seem to be a distinct correlation between teacher experience (as measured by years) and school API.
NO. OF HISPANIC STUDENTS (X AXIS) VS. NO. OF AFRICAN‐AMERICAN STUDENTS (Y AXIS)
Dimension of the dot = API
TEACHER EXPERIENCE (X AXIS) VS. NO. OF STUDENTS (Y AXIS)
Dimension of the dot = Crime
High schools tend to have more students as well as higher crime as compared to elementary schools
Click here for more examples of scatter plots and data patterns
All data is taken from publicly available data sets. You can access the Factual data spreadsheets here:
San Francisco Bay Area Schools
Legend for CA schools: Record Layout for 2010 Base API Data file 10b, 10g
