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Constructing a visualization dashboard to improve educational standards in Arizona legislative districts | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Constructing a visualization dashboard to improve educational standards in Arizona legislative districts


Abstract:

The quality of K-12 public education is a perennial issue in Arizona that has heightened in salience over the past several years, with broad public concerns over insuffic...Show More

Abstract:

The quality of K-12 public education is a perennial issue in Arizona that has heightened in salience over the past several years, with broad public concerns over insufficient funding sparking the Red for Ed movement for higher teacher pay. However, despite the push for educational change, there remain many barriers to K-12 public school education funding, including a lack of visibility for how Arizona public schools are performing at a legislative district level. Such information is released at a school district level by organizations like the Arizona Department of Education, but much of the information is limited and can be difficult for legislators to parse, particularly when school districts lie on the boundary between two legislative districts. Moreover, school outcome data is often limited to raw spreadsheets for the public and may be fragmented between government websites and educational organizations depending on the metric. Ultimately, this hinders the public’s understanding of the current educational standing. As such, a visualization dashboard that clearly identifies schools and their relative performance within each legislative district would be an invaluable tool for legislative bodies and the Arizona public. It is proposed that a dashboard for Arizona at the district level would increase transparency and availability of public information about these districts, allowing legislators to utilize the dashboard as a tool for greater understanding and more effective policymaking. While there are many positive social implications to be afforded by educational dashboards, this article also points to potential risks of this new visibility without end-user training.
Date of Conference: 28-31 October 2021
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 06 December 2021
ISBN Information:

ISSN Information:

Conference Location: Waterloo, ON, Canada

I. Introduction

Education is one of the most important predictors for success for young children around the world. In the United States, there have been significant movements and progress to advance education as seen with legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act, and, more recently, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). As a way to provide the public with information and to create a convenient way to view, interpret, compare and contrast educational data, many states including California and Texas have created dashboards at different levels of government that encapsulate performance, along with environmental factors, such as income. These dashboards allow for public accountability and for individuals to see how well certain schools, districts, or areas are performing. By providing these visualizations to educators, principals, and lawmakers, people with authority and power to make meaningful change in K-12 education are better equipped to do so. Although such dashboards can carry some unintended consequences, such as the possibility of incorrectly correlating performance with action, when the underlying issues may be more systemic, for example, based on differences in demographics, these effects can be minimized by creating better quality dashboards that clearly depict demographics alongside performance metrics.

References

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