Throughout the course of the semester, I will be partnering with the organization Achieve Hartford, a nonprofit education advocacy group. Fortunately, I had some exposure to this organization last semester through the Community Learning Initiative, in which I co-authored a study on the characteristics of students in the Hartford Public School (HPS) system. This past experience helped fuel my interest to work more closely with Achieve Hartford, and learn the art of data visualization in the process.
Through research, publications, and community forums, Achieve Hartford raises awareness about the state of education reform in Hartford and hopes to facilitate the engagement of parents, businesses, and community and school leaders in the process. For my role, the research and publications will be the most relevant aspect of their work. Their research is conducted in an independent and credible manner, in order to raise awareness about facts and issues affecting the HPS system. Achieve Hartford’s primary goal in terms of data visualization is to optimize their presentation of the most interesting and meaningful data by highlighting its worth through visualizations and thus making it more accessible to parents, rather than reading through an entire report.
Though I am still in the very early stages of expanding my knowledge of data visualization tools, I am certain that interactive charts and tables will be beneficial in helping to consolidate data from several reports, possibly with achievement data of test scores. Additionally, geographical visualizations of relevant indicators will also be useful to identify any possible trends. Something as simple as an interactive map that shows the spatial distribution of Hartford schools across the four school zones in Hartford might help parents make more informed decisions about school choice.
I look forward to working with Achieve Hartford this semester and I hope to create data visualizations that will positively complement their work.
View Distribution of School Types in HPS in a full screen map
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