With students back in school, there should be a host of data available to help analyze how school districts in your area are faring.
Most states require schools to conduct a head count at the beginning of the school year, and often these reports include information on gender, ethnicity and other variables. Data on the number of teachers at each grade level, the number of students signed up for free or reduced lunches, district employee lists and payroll data should also be available.
These basic data sets can prove to be gold mines throughout the year.
"It's no different than doing a library search on old stories. It's the same kind of tool," said Linda Johnson, the computer-assisted reporting coordinator and former education reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky.
Data gold mines
Basic enrollment data can provide clues to whether the school or district as a whole is gaining or losing students. Combining that with teacher information can show student-teacher ratios. A simple district employee list can be valuable if police arrest somebody who is rumored to be a school employee - especially over the weekend when administrative offices are closed.
Jeff Porter, a reporter with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette who previously covered education, recommends reporters get "everything they can get their hands on" in terms of data.
For beginners, the school budget is a great place to start. And having financial information is always useful, Porter said.
Use financial data to compare year-to-year changes in funding, particularly at the department level. How does special education funding compare to athletic funding? How much is being spent per student? What are teachers being paid and is it effective?
Porter said an increasing number of states are producing detailed education data, dealing with things such as characteristics of every student, school and teacher. This year, Arkansas will also include data that will make it possible to analyze how many library books and computer stations each school has per student.
One of the challenges that remains, however, is overcoming the confidentiality problem associated with student and teacher data.
Negotiating roadblocks
Johnson fought Kentucky education officials for two months before settling for less data than she wanted. She asked for 10 years worth of teacher information, including a unique identifier (no names), the college he or she graduated from, the certification test taken, score received, race, gender, date of birth and school district (not specific school).
But state officials still feared someone would be identifiable, especially in smaller districts.
"They argued that even if we trusted you and made it available, we'd have to make it available to anybody who wanted it," Johnson said. "And I couldn't really argue with that one."
She ended up with two tables, with data going back just four years. The first table had testing information, the year the person was born and the college attended. The second had the same testing data, year born and school district. Data from prior years simply weren't available electronically.
The data led to a series last year, "The Learning Gap" that showed the passing score on teacher certification tests was significantly lower than other southern regional states.
"Confidentiality can be a big block," Johnson said. "You've just got to keep plugging away."
Porter recommends starting with the person who works with the data or the lowest level of bureaucracy, and then keep going up when negotiating for data.
"If the district feels like it has to aggregate numbers, instead of giving specifics, then you should negotiate," Porter said. "Some schools will argue that because they don't want you to have that information."
Handouts on using CAR to cover education, available at the IRE Resource Center, include:
"Some education tips from Alabama," by Jay Reeves of the Associated Press (#890).
"CAR on the education beat" by David Heath of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jeff Porter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (#956 and #957).
"School report cards: How to go beyond test scores," by Heather Newman of the Detroit Free Press (#891).
"Resource list from The Learning Gap," the Lexington Herald-Leader's series on teacher certification (#892).
"Analyzing capital spending to find discrimination," by Neil Reisner of The Miami Herald (#896).
Having the details, however, is much more useful in the long run, Porter said. With raw data, reporters can also analyze things such as:
Demographics across a district, area or state. How teacher ethnicity in a school compares to student ethnicity. Teacher experience levels. College entrance exam results, including percentage of students who took the test. Facility information, such as school overcrowding.
Details in the data
Josh Freed, education reporter for the Post-Bulletin in Rochester, Minn., used persistence with education officials in his area to obtain payroll data for the St. Charles, Minn., School District. An auditor had reported that school officials were receiving "bonuses" from the district's "leftover" money each year, but the audit didn't divulge any further details.
After receiving 1995-1998 data in an Excel spreadsheet, Freed manually added the payroll records for 1994 - ending up with about 800 records. A few simple queries in Access summed up the total bonuses each employee received over the seven years and Freed quickly had the basis of a solid story showing two principals had received bonuses totaling more than $22,000 and $21,000, respectively during that time period.
A simple story by CAR standards, Freed says, but it made a difference. The small Minnesota school district isn't giving out bonuses anymore.
Maryjo Sylwester can be reached by e-mail at maryjo@nicar.org