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Department of Education

Looking Forward with MapEd School Feeder Patterns

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Megan Gottfried

Blue Raster has created new, one-of-a-kind functionality for the MapEd Project that displays School Feeder Patterns across the United States. A Feeder Pattern shows the trajectory of a student through the school system based on a geographic location. It is a unique way to visualize the School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS), a National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey conducted bi-annually, outlining a school’s geographic attendance zone. This provides a more complete look at school boundaries and gives parents school options for their child.

The charts are powered by D3.js and use a modified Dendrogram to create smooth connecting lines. The functionality behind the graphic leverages the ArcGIS API for JavaScript Geometry Engine which allows for the intersection of geometries to be done on-the-fly as the users explore the SABS Dataset. The MapEd Project continues to evolve and keep up with the latest technologies in data visualization Feeder Patterns being the latest exceptional example of this.

“School Feeder Patterns allow users to use the School Attendance Boundary Survey in ways never possible before: visualizing the projection of a student throughout the school system. The school feeder patterns were created from regular and defacto 2013-2014 school attendance boundaries. These patterns were identified through a union of overlapping elementary, middle, high, and other school level boundaries. The team is looking forward to enhancing the data for schools by incorporating 2010-2014 American Community Survey data at the school level to become a rich resource for the Education Research/Statistical and GIS communities.”

-Tai Phan, Census Mapping Lead at NCES

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Education
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Easy Data Collection for School Attendance Boundaries

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Megan Gottfried

Due to the widespread success of School Mapper for the 2013-2014 school year, it has now been released for the second round of data collection for the 2015-2016 school year. Built in collaboration with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Sanametrix, School Mapper provides District Superintendents the ability to add, update, and delete the school attendance boundaries within their districts, as well as edit schools locations and details. The updated data is then reviewed and saved as part of the School Attendance Boundary Survey (SABS).

Because SABS is an optional survey, the 90.2% completion rate by Superintendents for the 2013-2014 school year is considered exceptional, and led to the continuation of the survey biennially. Being able to update this data set easily and frequently allows researchers to get a narrower view of what is going on for a school’s attendance zone with respect to demographic, social and economic indices, where we previously may have been limited to county or district borders. To make it even simpler: once all schools have been completed within the district, the data can be downloaded as a PDF or shapefile, so that when the next collection starts, the user can upload their shapefile and pick up where they left off.

The School Mapper leverages the latest ArcGIS for Server technologies, ArcGIS Online, Python and various JavaScript tools such as data-driven documents (d3.js).

“The success of the School Mapper Application is due to its simplicity in design, encouraging representatives to update school boundaries while eliminating the burden of reporting data and removing inconsistencies in data collection. NCES makes this latest boundary data publicly available so that researchers can examine social and demographic characteristics and educational policy effects at the school level for real, targeted change.”

– Tai Phan, Mathematical Statistician, NCES, U.S. Department of Education

The Hidden Cost of Suspension

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Christina Nordling

As part of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) new public awareness campaign, #RethinkDiscipline, Blue Raster launched The Hidden Cost of Suspension story map in partnership with Sanametrix. Since 2011, the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice have collected data on suspensions, expulsions, and other practices that remove students from instruction.

To make their data comprehensible at a glance by decision makers and the public, ED turned to Blue Raster to create a series of maps to be shared on social media. Through this story map, the public can better understand the prevalence of out-of-school suspensions in their communities.
The application was developed using Esri’s side accordion story map template that allows users to step through three maps.

“Creating and sustaining safe, supportive schools is absolutely essential to ensuring students can engage in the rich learning experiences they need for success in college, work and life – that’s why rethinking school discipline is critical to boosting student achievement and improving school outcomes,”

-Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

This story map was highlighted in the articles below:

Department of Education Open Data

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Christina Nordling

Did you know that websites you visit every day, such as weather.com, are powered by open data from government agencies? Large amounts of government data are available on sites like data.gov, but often organizations have difficulty finding the relevant datasets. Open data initiatives like MapED Open Data provide authoritative, ready-to-use data driving many private-sector applications on the web today.

Built by Blue Raster, the MapED Open Data site enables citizens to better discover, map, and download NCES and Census datasets in a user friendly way. GIS-users can download data in shapefiles and KMLs. Traditional download formats like excel spreadsheets are also supported. Additionally, developers can find datasets for their applications and access them with the Esri GeoServices REST Spec or GeoJSON.

The site features innovative data filtering and analytical mapping that is approachable by everyday users. Charting capabilities, histograms, and scatter plots can be embedded in other websites, applications, and tools.

The site currently features school, district, and state-level data, with additional datasets coming in the next few months. Visit the MapED Open Data site at data.deptofed.opendata.arcgis.com.

Posted in
Education
Federal

Mapping Education and Demographic Trends with MapED

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Christina Nordling

The Census Mapping program at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) – U.S. Department of Education has just released MapED, a new online mapping platform developed by Blue Raster and partner, Sanametrix, to visualize education and census data across the country.

The platform unites NCES and CENSUS datasets with GIS mapping capabilities. The general public can investigate education and demographic trends on local, regional, and national scales. The improved workflow makes it possible for anyone to discover, map, and analyze the data with ease, as users walk through selecting a program or topic area and explore and visualize the data on customizable maps.

Initially, the platform contains school, district, and or state-level data from:

American Community Survey (ACS)
Common Core of Data (CCD)
Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS)
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
the Private School Universe Survey (PSS)
More data and programs are planned in the future.

“MapED is a valuable resource. The data has always been available but the ability to narrow down hundreds of Census demographic indicators over multiple years, starting out with a topic of interest; and then visualize it on a national map down to the district or school level is a new and powerful way to make it accessible to a much wider audience. ”

-Tai Phan, Census Mapping Lead at NCES

MapED also features a series of Story Maps that will be released in the coming months. The initial release features Story Maps exploring school bullying on the basis of race, sex, and disability as well as public school student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from 2003 to 2013. Future releases will include additional story maps including school enrollment by race comparisons using ACS data.

MapED is developed using the ArcGIS API for JavaScript and ArcGIS Server and uses .NET web services to automate the addition of new data each year. Esri JavaScript templates and ArcGIS Online both support the development of story maps.

To learn more about the project and view the application, visit NCES MapED.

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