Segregation Patterns in District 1 Schools
At the recent public meeting about admissions policies, one of the four key priorities for District 1 parents, endorsed by many speakers from the public, was that the "demographics of our schools should reflect the diversity of our district". I wondered to what extent this is or is not the case right now. Using data provided online by the DOE, specifically the "J-Form" available in the Statistical Summaries section of the DOE web site, I tried my hand at some analysis to see what I could determine about this. What follows is that analysis.
A couple of notes:
- I am not a professional statistician. For that reason, I have described my reasoning in full detail, with the hope that anyone with relevant expertise can point out where I may have gone wrong. Comments on this article are open, and I invite you to respond there with any questions or criticism about methods.
- This is an "open source" analysis effort. I have attached the spreadsheet that I put together to do this analysis (see below). I also may make revisions to this document based on feedback from anyone who finds flaws in the reasoning or perspective used here.
Also, please keep in mind that all data used here comes from the DOE source linked above. The accuracy of any analysis here is tied directly to the accuracy of that data. In my understanding, the "J-Form" report is compiled based on data compiled as of October 31 of every year. In the following, I'm using the data associated with October 31, 2006.