Inequatlity’s Impact on Student Performance

Dataset Overview

  • 4 data sets on pre K-12 public schools in Virginia
    • Standardized test scores from 2012-2017 in English, Math, History, and Science
    • Number of students with free or reduced lunched from 2008-2017
    • Number of students per grade from 2008-2017
    • Coordinates of each school
  • About 2,000 schools, but varies per dataset
  • Published by the University Libraries at Virginia Tech

Project Goals

  • Understanding Virginia’s public school system and potential education inequality throughout the state

Research Questions

  1. How has school performance changed over time?
  2. How do differences in school funding correlate to overall school performance?
  3. How does location impact schools?
  4. How do schools impact their neighboring schools?

Key Insights

Q1. How has school performance changed over time?

The Virginia SOL (Standards of Learning) test is a standardized assessment measuring student mastery of key academic standards. Analyzing its scores over time is necessary because it provides empirical, longitudinal data to track trends in school performance. Some key insights supported by preliminary analysis of the first dataset, Standardized test scores from 2012-2017 in English, Math, History, and Science, include the following: - Averaged across all subjects, more affluent areas of VA tend to have higher SOL pass rates. - e.g., Northern VA is 2-5% higher than the next highest scoring regions, Central & Eastern VA. - Pass rates tend to follow a consistent ranking: History, English, Science, Math (from highest to lowest). - Mean SOL pass rates appear to have dipped significantly across all regions & school types between 2012-13 and 2013-14. - This may be due to inconsistency in the dataset; data for 2012-13 was sparse and disorganized.

Q2. How do differences in school funding correlate to overall school performance?

This shows the breakdown of the around 2000 schools that were given in the data sets into elementary, high, and middle school. As you can see the number of elementary schools far outweighs the number of high or middle schools by about four times as many schools. However, both the number of high and middle schools in Virginia are extremely similar, both hovering around 300.

Q3. How does location impact schools?

The distribution of Free/Reduced Lunch for Virginia schools is normalized about 50%, with there being a few more schools with a percentage less than 50 than those with a higher percentage. The percentage of students on a free or reduced lunch plan is important to understanding inequality in Virginia’s school system because if a school has a higher percentage of students on free or reduced lunch, then it most likely means that the area surrounding that school are less affluent.

Q4. How do schools impact their neighboring schools?

Viewing the accreditation status of schools broken up by level acts as an overview for overall school performance across Virginia. A majority of schools maintain a fully accredited status, hovering around 80% for all levels of schooling. The percentage of partially accredited schools is about 20% across all levels. Finally, the percentage of schools who were denied accreditation is overwhelmingly small, with it being close to only 3%. This chart shows that schools in Virginia have differences in there performance in all levels of schooling.

Visualization 1: How has school performance changed over time?

* Note: The demographic region data used for this visualization was sourced from the UVA Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

Visualization 2: How do differences in school funding correlate to overall school performance?

Visualization 3: How does location impact schools?

Visualization 4: How do schools impact their neighboring schools?