{
  "id": "1997-august-handout-of-the-month",
  "slug": "1997-august-handout-of-the-month",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1997-august-handout-of-the-month.html",
  "year": 1997,
  "month": "August",
  "monthNum": 8,
  "headline": "Handout of the Month",
  "kicker": "CAR coverage syllabus",
  "author_name": "Rose Ciotta",
  "author_title": "Reporter",
  "affiliation": "Buffalo News",
  "summary": "This IRE conference handout guide provides education reporters with computer-assisted reporting (CAR) techniques to investigate and compare school district data, including demographic information, teacher salaries, and long-term trends, enabling readers to see how their districts compare locally and statewide.",
  "keywords": [
    "education",
    "analysis",
    "districts"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Education",
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases"
  ],
  "technologies": [],
  "full_text": "This is an excerpt of a handout given at the National IRE Conference in Phoenix. To order the complete handout or to get a list of other available handouts, call the IRE Resource Center at (573) 882-3364. Using CAR to investigate school trends is no longer of interest only to the education reporter. There are scores of local stories based on the analysis of data gathered at the local or state level. In many cases, the data match national trend data - is collected by the U.S. Department of Education. These stories can be done by reporters covering education, suburbs or just one school district. Readers want to see how their district compares to other districts. By getting the same data for all of the districts in your state you can easily report how your district compares on any number of variables. It's an excellent way to size up your district. Here is a list of ideas to get you started. CAR Education Topics 1. Demographic Data Schools have to report their racial breakdown. In a growing community, those numbers alone can help you compare and contrast districts as a reflection of housing patterns. Or, in established areas, the demographic data can help you identify districts and/or schools to feature for other stories. Also look for income information which is usually reported as percent eligible for a free or reduced lunch or the Census poverty index. At-risk data includes suspension and dropout rates. There's also percent of students in special education, number of students with limited English proficiency, percent of graduates who went to college, percent who graduated with a state diploma. 2. Salaries Taxpayers everywhere want to know how the teacher salaries in their district compare to teachers in other districts. The best way to do this story is to get all of the salaries and figure your own medians and averages to determine which number best reflect the teachers' salaries. If salaries increase with seniority, a district or school with a high number of veteran teachers with advanced degrees will have high salaries compared to districts hiring younger teachers with bachelor's degrees. If actual salaries are not readily available, the state usually can give you median salaries. The state also collects other details related to seniority, education, race, certification and pupil-teacher ration. Don't stop with teachers. Some of the most interesting figures are the salaries paid to top administrators. Once you get that database, you can also figure salaries on a per pupil basis to compare salaries between large and small districts and number of administrators per pupil. 3. Taking the Long View Pick an issue and look at it over a long period of time, i.e. a decade. Whether it's teacher salaries or amount raised in local revenues, any numbers would have to be adjusted for inflation. To account for changes in enrollment, the value needs to be figured on a per pupil basis. The result is a per pupil number adjusted for inflation that allows anyone to compare data such as total expenditures, amount spent on special education, amount raised in local taxes and amount raised in state or federal aid. 4. School Taxes School taxes probably account for the largest portion of the local property tax bill if your district relies on local property taxes for its funding. This is another area that can benefit from a long view analysis. When analyzing revenues, make sure you know what's included an what isn't. Local revenues may include sales tax. Is that a major or minor portion of the total? To be sure you have the whole picture of a district, ask for all of the revenue pieces including how much the district receives in state aid and federal grants. To compare districts over time, calculate these numbers on a per pupil basis adjusted for inflation. 5. Enrollment It's reasonable that spending increases when enrollment increases. But, you can often get interesting explanations when the opposite occurs. Looking at data simultaneously over a 10-year period allows you to see these trends. 6. Spending This is the trickiest area in school finance and another very good place to calculate per pupil spending over time with adjustments for inflation. The pitfalls are in the definition of spending. Remember, readers get the total expenditure number on their tax bill. They may be confused if you use anything else to calculate spending per pupil. Rose Ciotta can be reached at (716) 849-5548, or send e-mail to ciotta@buffnews.com There's approved operating spending with only includes day to day operating expenses. There's total expenditures which includes everything including busing, and there's total general fund expenditures which is spending for the program itself.",
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    {
      "slug": "1997-august-on-the-internet",
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