The Maryland Health Department published updated numbers today, so I decided to see how long it would take me to update the map. Because I set up my spreadsheet properly it did not take very long. I just popped in the new case information and then exported it to the map. I used the NCES School Directory. Two schools were not in the directory, Blue Heron Elementary, which I added to the database, and the Success Program, which I did not add.
Since this map only shows schools with active cases, many of the schools with “decreasing” cases are not shown on the map. The Maryland Health Department list includes private schools. This map only shows public schools because I have a spreadsheet with public school addresses already set up. Private schools could be added if I spent the time to look up each address. I have not fully checked the map yet as I am just experimenting with the capabilities and my database skills.
As a note, some school systems’ first day of school is September 8, 2021.
After my last map that shows public schools that have ever had an active outbreak, I got curious about what it would look like to just show schools with current active cases with trend information. Please see the notes for the data in the previous posts.
I made a few updates to the percent public schools with outbreak cases map I posted earlier today. I added information in the tooltips about the number of public schools and the number of outbreak-associated cases. For notes on the data and the process please see the earlier post.
I still have not learned how to make a timeline map to show outbreaks over time, although I think I am on the way to figuring it out. I watched the beginning of an 11 hour YouTube tutorial with that end in mind. Since I really want to learn the first principles of coding data visualization I want to take my time. I want to really understand how to build a website using HTML, CSS, and javascript rather than just educated guesses and trial and error (although I am pretty good at that type of coding when I need to make something work). I believe that the tutorial uses the D3 library for visualizations, but I have not gotten there yet. I am interested in learning D3 as I have read that it is very customizable. Although I do not think I have gotten close to the edge of the interesting visualizations I can make with Datawrapper and Amcharts.
Percent Public Schools with Active OUtBreak Map
I really like the outbreak maps I have made showing the locations of schools both public and private with a COVID-19 outbreak, as defined by the Maryland Health Department. However, these maps quickly get crowded and are kind of hard to read unless you zoom in closely. It is also hard to compare counties because counties are not all the same density. Also, the outbreak map by school takes a while to set up because I need to find the street address for each school. I have plans to use the vlookup feature in Excel to make match the names in the Maryland Health Department list, but most of the names do not match exactly so I expect that might take a while.
So, I decided to make a map showing the percentage of public schools with an active outbreak. I got the number of schools from the 2021 NCES School Directory list on the Maryland Report Card website. I had previously coded schools from the Maryland Health Department list from September 1, 2021, as public or private. I coded the list based on googling, I should probably check the list against the NCES School Directory, but I have not done that yet. Then I divided the total number of public schools by the number of schools with an outbreak listed. This was fairly quick, the most time-consuming part was coding the schools as public or private.
It should be noted that many public school systems have not opened yet as of September 1, 2021.
I like many things about this map. The size and specific location of outbreaks are lost, but it gives a general idea of the outbreaks in public schools in the State. I think for my own personal use I would want to see both the location-specific map showing cases per school and this map.
Notes about the Data
These notes are copied from the Maryland Department of Health website.
Note: This dataset reflects public and non-public K-12 schools in Maryland that have COVID-19 outbreaks. Data are based on local health department reports to MDH, which may be revised if additional information becomes available. This list does not include child care facilities or institutes of higher education. Schools listed meet 1 or more of the following criteria:
Classroom/cohort outbreak definition: 1) At least two confirmed COVID-19 cases among students/teachers/staff within a 14-day period and who are epidemiologically linked, but not household contacts; or
School-wide outbreak definition:
2) Three or more classrooms or cohorts with cases from separate households that meet the classroom/cohort outbreak definition that occurs within 14 days; or 3) Five percent or more unrelated students/teachers/staff have confirmed COVID-19 within a 14 day period (minimum of 10 unrelated students/teachers/staff).
Cases reported reflect the current total number of cases. Schools are removed from the list when health officials determine 14 days have passed with no new cases and no tests pending. Archival data is available through the COVID-19 open data catalogue. These data are updated weekly on Wednesdays during the 10 a.m. hour. MDH is continuously evaluating its data and reporting systems and will make updates as more data becomes available.
I pulled data on September 1, 2021, to make the above map. I provided the information on whether a school is public or private. All errors are my own. This map is not official, it is primarily for the purpose of me exploring the visualization features and keeping track of what I learned.
Again I am using publically posted data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data Center. In their data set they did not post the percentage of public high school students that earned a college degree by age 25, I calculated it by dividing the number of high school graduates in a county by the number of students that earned a college degree from that county by age 25. From my understanding of the data this should work, but I haven’t done a deep analysis into the potential flaws of that process.
For this Datawrapper map, I added a legend caption to reflect the Statewide average. The caption appears directly above the legend. For now I this placement makes sense for a Statewide average. Otherwise, I used the same settings I have used with the other maps I have made thus far.
Public Policy Thoughts About the Data
According to this data, 40% of Maryland public high school students who graduated in 2011-2012 earned a college degree by age 25. There is not directly comparable data nationwide because Maryland Longitudinal Data Center only collects and publishes data about Maryland. The American Community Survey Data collects data about the educational attainment of individuals based on where they live, not where they graduated high school or where they were educated. According to that data 44% of Marylanders 25-44 years old, have earned a bachelor's degree or higher. Maryland is known as a State with a highly educated workforce. Is that because a large number of the State's high school graduates graduate college by age 25 or is it because educated workers move to the State? I do not know the answer, but I interested in exploring the data more.
What strikes me about the map is the difference in the percentage of high school graduates who earn a college degree by age 25 in Baltimore City, 16%, and Howard County, 60%. That is a huge difference, 44 percentage points. As someone who is familiar with Maryland I am not surprised by the difference, but the difference is striking. I want to dig deeper into the data. I want to see if low-income high school graduates from Howard County earn college degrees at a similar rate to high-income graduates in the county, or is the rate more similar to that of jurisdiction that have higher levels of poverty such as Baltimore City. I also want to look at the opposite for Baltimore City.
When looking back on the map showing percent college enrollees with a college degree by age 25, there is no jurisdiction that stands out as being radically different in this map, but I will need to dig deeper into the data.
If I can understand the potential reasons behind the data better I hope I will be able to give better policy advice.
Yesterday I made my first map using Datawrapper. I noted in the write-up of my experience that I could not figure out how to display the data as a percentage; I ended up displaying it as a decimal. I figured that it was possible because I had seen Datawrapper maps with percentages, so I was pretty sure I just needed to dig through the menus and options. Unsurprisingly, I quickly found a tutorial written by Datawrapper that explained how to customize a choropleth map, which included the information I needed to figure out how to display percentages.
Since the Datawrapper tutorial does not directly address displaying map data as a percentage, I will give a quick explanation to remember how to do it next time. Basically, it is a three-step process.
Upload the data striped of the percent sign as you want it displayed, not in decimile form. For example if you want a data point to be 8% upload the data as 8. This will allow your data to be displayed in the map. If you add the percent sign the data will not be displayed.
On the “visulize” step choose a percent number format (there are a few choices) from the legend menu. This will display the data as a percentage in the legend.
Use “Tooltips” to add the percent symbol after the variable code for the data. It is the second box.
As I suspected, it was not difficult to get the data to display as I wanted. It just took some digging into the menus and options.
Now for a look at the map.
As with the first map I made, I used data published by the Maryland Longitudinal Data Center. For their visualization of the data, you have to pull up each county individually because they have rich data on students from each county. I like seeing all of the counties at once on one map. I used the same color scheme as with my last map, with red being the lower percentages and green being the higher percentages. For this map, I allowed the lowest percentage to be the darkest red and the highest percentage to be the darkest green. I have not yet given much thought to if that is the best way to display the data.
Another piece of data that I want to explore adding to the map is the Statewide average. I know that the Statewide average is 51%, that is, Statewide, 51% of public school students who graduated in 2011-2012 earned a certificate, associate's, bachelor's, or master's degree or higher by age 25. At least among the students captured in the dataset.
It stands out that only 22% of students from Baltimore City who enroll in college earn a college degree by age 25. What the data does not tell me is why. Since I am a curious person, I plan to dig into the data more to look for why this might be. I might not find the whole story, but I hope to find some elements of the story. Dorchester and Somerset counties also have low levels of degree attainment for students who enroll in college. For future maps I want to look at total college degree attainment by high school graduates, college degree attainment by FARMS and non-FARMS students, and by FARMS percentage of the entire county. I also want to see how the college enrollment rate correlates with the college graduation rate. While examining this data, I want to see the capabilities Datawrapper has to display the data.
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