Today I decided to take a quick look at the percentage of all students who score proficient on the Statewide science assessment.

I also did the same map for economically disadvantaged students.

After looking at the maps I put them on the same color scale.

I believe this shows all test takers, both first-time and retakers, I wish they would separate them.

The first map below shows the percent of all test takers who were proficient (level 4 or 5) on the Grade 10 English/Language Arts Exam for the 2020-2021 academic year. The second map shows the percent of economically disadvantaged students who were proficient on the same exam during the same period. The all-student map includes the economically disadvantaged students. The definition of economically disadvantaged is not immediately clear from the data. The definition was not included in the “definitions” section of the website. There is a separate measure, which includes more students, for “FARMS”-(free-and-reduced priced meal.” I assume that it is students “eligible” for free-and-reduced priced meals, but that is not specified either. The third map shows the percentage of non-economically disadvantaged students who were proficient on the exam.

I put these maps together to see if there were schools that had high test scores for the full student body but were less successful for economically disadvantaged students. The problem I ran into, which isn’t really shown in the maps, is that the schools with really high test scores overall, like Severa Park, have only a few economically disadvantaged students overall.

All Students

Economically Disadvantaged Students

Non-economically Disadvantaged

I found a new dataset today. It shows the number and percentage of students that are promoted in high school every year.

The map shows the percentage of 2020-2021 grade 9 students that were not promoted to grade 10.

Played around with showing Non-FARMS High School graduates who earn a college degree by age 25. The Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center publishes the data as a percentage of high school graduates that enroll in college. I used their published numbers to see the total high school graduates. I was originally interested in FARMs students, but the data was repressed for most of the schools.

As always this is just me exploring the data that is available. I am trying to make sense of the data and be able to remember the information.

I am exploring using a map to display college enrollment data for Anne Arundel County. Unfortunately, I only have a shapefile that includes Crofton HS, which is a new school, so the boundaries do not reflect the boundaries at the time. The are other specialized high schools in the county that are not reflected in the data. Since I haven’t done mapping in a while I had to remember how to upload the data, but I figured it out pretty quickly.

I have a problem, now that I a managing people I need to figure out a good way to record and visualize what my people know. I’ve done a few google searches, and I’ve read about “skills mapping matrixes”, and while this seems like the best option out there, I’m not really excited about it, at least not yet.

I can’t decide if I want to primarily focus on what particular a member of staff knows, or focus on the areas of knowledge, and then which staff member knows the topic. I am not sure which fits my needs best. Although I think that I need to focus on the areas of knowledge.

First Step-Develop a List of Areas of Knowledge

I decided that my first step is to develop a list of areas of knowledge in the education workgroup.

There are 3 major categories Early Childhood Development and Education, Primary and Secondary, and Higher Education. There are also other misalaneous topics such as libraries and the longitudinal data system center that don’t fit into any of the other categories.

Early Childhood Development and Education

  • Childcare Programs
  • Early Childhood Development Programs

Primary and Secondary Education

  • Funding Formulas
  • Teacher Certification/Career Ladder
  • Curriculum Requirements
  • Governance (State Board of Education, AIB)
  • School Construction
  • State-Operated Schools
  • Alternative and Innovative Public School Programs
  • Assessments and Accountability
  • Special Education
  • Rehabilitation Services
  • School Safety
  • Homeschooling

Higher Education

  • Maryland Higher Education Commission and Program Approval
  • Higher Education Funding and Funding Formulas
  • Community Colleges
  • Public Four-years
  • Regional Higher Education Centers
  • Financial Aid
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Credit Transfers
  • Capital Funding

Other

  • State Library
  • Local Libraries
  • Maryland Longitudinal Data System

Immediate college enrollment decreased by 5 percentage points for both low-income and non-low-income HS graduates of the class of 2022.

I am a sucker for outcome data by state. I like to take the data from these reports and graph the Maryland data.

This is primarily a blog about me exploring data visualization. I am having trouble flipping the order of the categories, I would like “completed at starting institution” to be on the bottom. I think that being able to easily control the order of the categories is very important. The order shown hides the percentage of students that have graduated from any institution.

I figured it out, but I had to reenter the data. I would also like to add national data on the same chart, but that does not seem to be an option anymore.

Apparently, I can add national data if I make a stacked bar chart, but not for a stacked column chart.

I have been busy with the 2022 legislative session and new work responsibilities, but today I had some time to graph some enrollment data I read about today.

Maryland Estimated Enrollment by Sector 2020 to 2022

Nationwide Estimated Change in Enrollment By Major