How do you locate Connecticut State Department of Education statistics about teachers?

How do you locate Connecticut State Department of Education statistics about teachers, such as the percentage of racial minorities and average years of experience by district? Describe your search strategy and results for Hartford versus any suburb.

Statistics about teachers are very important because they give researchers and reformers certain clues about the classroom dynamic. I was very weary doing my search as I didn’t know where to start. I searched a few terms in google and quickly realized that my method was ill conceived. I decided that the best way for me to find this information would be to start at the source. I searched “Connecticut State Department of Education statistics” and got to this page.

Once on the main page it seemed as if it would be easy to find the information. I clicked on a link titled “Data Tables”. It’s description said “View export and drill into education data tables”. I knew that this was a good lead. On the left hand side of the data table page there is a tab that says “Select Report”. Under it there are choices such as CMT, Dropout and Graduation. I selected “Staff” because of my interest in data about teachers. This link brought me to a main list of staff reports. I clicked on “General Education” which lead me to this page which was exactly what I needed.

This is what the page looks like.

As you can see it has information about Race, Ethnicity and numbers of years of experience.

I chose to find information about the year 2010-2011. In the Hartford School District there were 1,313 teachers. 7 were American Indian, 17 were Asian, 156 were African American, 148 were Latino and 985 were White. This information can be compared to the West Hartford School District which had 666 teachers. 1 was American Indian, 10 were Asian, 10 were African American, 14 were Latino and 631 were White. These statistics aren’t that surprising but they reflect the need for more teachers of color in both the city and the suburbs.

The information on the number of years of experience may be more intriguing. In Hartford the average experience was 12.9 years. In West Hartford the average experience was 13.7 years. This information can tell researchers about job security and accountability of teachers.

This assignment was actually fun and interesting and I will use this newfound research skill to learn more about the differences in city and suburban education.