Education Research and Statistics Bootcamp

Feb. 8-11, 2007- Cambridge, Mass.

The Education Writers Association, with the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, held its third annual conference on education research and statistics. The conference offered a mix of hands-on training on how to work with data and lessons on how to read education research and to tell good statistics from bad.

• Judy Singer, the James Bryant Conant Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, gave reporters adviceabout questions they should ask when writing about education research. Singer broke apart a recent news story to show how the reporter who wrote it could have better served readers.

Reporters began working on projects that some have now completed at the bootcamp.

• Katie Byard of the Akron Beacon Journal wrote "Shouldering the burden for schools,"a piece that explained the burden of paying local taxes for schools has shifted from businesses to homeowners and farmers in Ohio.
• Kathleen Carroll produced "Middle schoolers need boost, educators say," for the Record in New Jersey. In it, Carroll examined why the test scores of students throughout New Jersey plummet in sixth grade. She later used her CAR skills to write "Another big jump in N.J. autism cases"and compile a chartthat explains the change in the native languages of ESL students.
• Robert Digitale's work culminated in "Why some schools scored better,"published in the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Cal. Digitale looked at campuses that hadsignificantly boostedtest scores in the last few years and how they had done it.
• Sheena Dooley's two-parter in the Quad-City Times looked at the disparity in pay and benefits between Ohio and Illinois in Disparities in Q-C teacher pay: There's a great divide. She also looked at the disparity in experience in Disparities in teacher pay: Lower income equals higher risk.
• Greg Gelpi of the Augusta Chronicle completed a year-long project on high school dropouts.
• John Gravois of the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote authoritatively in "Trapped by education,"his piece on why, as graduate students nationwide take on more debt, black students have been hit particularly hard.
• Amy Jeter of the Virginian-Pilot took a different approach to testing results in "Why are so many students acing some SOL tests?".She used what she learned at bootcamp for a story that asked why such a large percentage of students are making a perfect score on Virginia's state test.
• Jennifer Jordan of the Providence Journal examined health insurance premiums paid by teachers and districts in Health care: What teachers pay is all over the board. She examined the expenditures and found that some teachers paid nothing toward their health insurance while others had to pay as much as $2,000 a year.
• John Krupa of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette used his new computer skills to write a story about regional test results in "Literacy scores decline for many area schools."He looked at some of the reasons behind the shift and honed in on schoolsthat performed worst.
• Tia Mitchell has been working on a project for the Jacksonville Times-Union concerning all purchase orders issued by the Duval County school system over five years. Here is a story she wrote about passing rates in Advanced Placement classes.
• Amy Rainey has reported about graduation rates for the Charlotte Observer. Here are two stories written by her entitled the "Diploma Rates Worry Officials: Schools Working to Increase Number of Graduates" and "Graduation Rates Improve; Among Gaston High Schools, Cherryville Sees Most Gains South Point Sees Decrease".
• Olivia Majesky-Pullmann compiled a searchable databasewhere users can find enrollment trends, charitable donations and endowments atpublic and private HistoricallyBlack Colleges and Universities at the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Web site.
• Jamie Vaznis of the Boston Globe compared the pay of superintendents throughout Boston in "Perks climb for region's school chiefs."He examined the average salaries for two dozen public college presidents in "State hasn't acted on public college perk Housing allowance at issue."
• Mandy Zatynksi of the Palm Springs Desert Sun usedher new skills to create spreadsheetsthat show how local schools ranked on California's Academic Performance Index.
• Here's a story published by the Philadelphia Inquirer examining the trends behind state test scores.