Munzine

Every year, New York City public schools conduct an in-depth survey of their parents, students and teachers. According to the Department of Education, the survey, one of the largest of any kind in the nation, “helps school leaders understand what key members of the school community say about the learning environment at each school.”

People’s perceptions are inherently difficult to quantify, but the survey covers topics including Academic Expectations (e.g. asking if teachers “expect students to work hard”) and Safety and Respect (e.g. asking if students feel “safe in the hallways, bathrooms, locker rooms and cafeteria”).

So are people’s perceptions related to other more common measures of academic success, such as test scores? With the help of New York City’s Open Data platform, I was able to have a look for myself.

Below are the correlations between test results and survey scores:

One might expect that Academic Expectation scores would be the most closely correlated to test scores. But what I found was rather surprising: Safety and Respect scores are actually more highly correlated with test scores than Academic Expectations scores are. In other words, the more safe and respectful a school feels in New York City, the higher its test scores will be on average.

For the complete analysis, check out my guest post over at the wonderful Data Science for Social Good blog.

Data Sources Used:

Survey Data

Graduation Rates

New York State Test Scores (Math) (English)

SAT Scores

Happy Birthday, Zora Neale Hurston, born 7 January 1891, died 28 January 1960

13 Quotes

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

I want a busy life, a just mind, and a timely death.

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

I am not tragically coloured. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.

Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

It is one of the blessings of this world that few people see visions and dream dreams.

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.

I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That’s living.

Gods always behave like the people who make them.

Happiness is nothing but everyday living seen through a veil.

Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Bitterness is the coward’s revenge on the world for having been hurt.

Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author. Of Hurston’s four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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