Bridging the Gap is a web application that allows people to contextualize and visualize education inequality in the United States. As communities of color in the US continues to grow, it is important to understand the different systematic and implicit barriers that some of these communities face.
The data that’s used comes from the Civil Rights Data Collection, a yearly effort by the US Department of Education to collect information on the state of public education in the country. The dataset contains information from over 90 thousand schools and 16 thousand school districts.
Our app visualizes all the school districts in the country by labeling them as a dot on the map of the continental united states. From here the user can zoom in and focus on finding out information about specific areas in the country. By hovering on a district one can find out demographic information about the chosen district, seeing the racial make-up of the students who attended during the 2013-2014 school year.
Along with racial distribution of the entire district, we also record the rates of participation of different racial groups in the Advanced Placement program. It’s also possible to see specifics about how much a certain district spent per student as it relates to instructor and staff salary.
Demo:
MAP: This interactive map displays information from all school districts in the United States, focusing on funding per student and number of AP exams taken per student.
Each district is represented by a dot that displays more specific information once we hover over it.
In addition to the map, we have informative infographics on the education system in the United States. Right now we discuss enrollment rates, enrollment rates in advanced math classes and participation in SAT/ACT Prep by ethnicity, race and gender while giving context to some of the barriers that students of color face.
We have also included some relevant resources for users to gain more information about the education system in the US in hopes that readers will be intrigued enough to explore more.
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