In other news, the IRS 501(c)(4) application scandal can’t escape a bit of data-driven commentary.  Nate Silver responds to part 2 of the scandal, that conservatives were singled out for individual and business audits, with evidence of how many Obama and Romney voters were likely audited last year by the IRS (480,000 and 380,000, respectively).  His overall point is worth repeating – that a few anecdotal stories do not lead to reliable conclusions from big datasets.  In this case, we can’t make conclusions on a few stories from a “dataset” of 1.5 million audits a year.  As he states, “a handful of anecdotal data points are not worth very much in a country of more than 300 million people.”

• Poverty rates among children are generally unchanged;
• Adjusted to 2010 dollars, teacher salaries remain generally unchanged;
• NAEP reading and math scores have incrementally increased;

Has anything changed?

• Public confidence in public schools has decreased by 10 percentage points in the last 30 years;
• High school graduation rates have gone from 6.4% in 1900 to 50.8% in 1940, to a high of 77% in 1970, to 72.7% for the Class of 2009;
• High school graduates are taking more and more rigorous courses, and graduating with more credit hours.

Whether we have lived up to being a “rising tide of mediocrity” that threatens our nation and erodes our educational foundation, one thing is certain – discourse surrounding educational standards is not new. 

 

As with any job title, exact definitions vary, but some factors hold true when defining a data science position:

• Strong swimming skills – swimming in seas of data, that is. A data scientist mustn’t panic when underwater in a dataset, and, frequently they enjoy the immersion.
• Curiosity – what questions can the data answer?  Will one answer lead to another question?  Data scientists, like any scientists, must be observant of their data-filled surroundings and open to new questions that pop up along their analytical paths.
• Clarity – data scientists must be able to see through the fog of big data to find correlations that signal a relationship.  In turn, they must make their findings easy for all to digest, such as business leaders and policy makers. 

While fluency in today’s technical toolbox (like R, STATA, and SQL) is crucial, a colleague put it well when he said “if you are curious about finding meaning in big data, then you are a data scientist.”  Well said.

For example, let’s say you were reporting on some basic education metrics – performance, funding levels, size, socio-economic status of families, etc.  The main dashboard may show you all the data at once, but you can click to select filters yourself to see what interests you – maybe its high-performing schools in low SES area.  Or, any combination of factors can be applied to the outcome you are seeing.

In this sense, the end user – maybe your client? Conference attendee? Students?  Colleagues? – can interact with the data themselves – it is like a living report.

All of these companies I list above have tutorials and demos on their websites with numerous examples from business, medicine, social sciences, etc.  There is a bit of price variation among these software applications, and definitely a learning curve to be a developer of these reports, but, very worth it if your colleagues and clients can do their own digging for answers without re-running your data.

Yesterday, former Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah and AZ State Senator Kyrsten Sinema offered reasons why our level of civility in politics has changed.  Both elected officials noted a lessening of the tendency to sit down and share a “beverage” after the legislative day’s work is done – most legislators travel back to their homes on weekends or are encouraged by party leadership to not associate with the opposite party.  Yet, forming relationships is a necessary building block to civility and working together, Sen. Sinema noted.  She referenced her own experience of taking to heart this simple idea – that successful human relationships are grounded in civility, and, with civility, legislative compromise is achievable. 

This morning’s panel members noted that data is revolutionizing civic engagement.  Data can motivate and mobilize communities to better understand a problem and help define issues, according to Trish Tchume of Demos.  This was one of the key purposes of measuring civic indicators on an annual basis, as NCOC’s Civic Health Index does, including political involvement measures, social capitol measures, civic learning, and volunteering. 

Yet the quote “what gets measured gets done” resounded throughout the discussion, as mobilization, understanding of the issues, and civic engagement all stem from a basis of clear measurement of social problems. 

Finally, a new NCOC report links the very timely topic of economic growth and employment with civic health.  The study “finds that five measures of civic engagement – attending meetings, helping neighbors, registering to vote, volunteering and voting – appear to help protect against unemployment and contribute to overall economic resilience.” 

In all, civility is not only vital to successful political outcomes and political participation, but it crucially keeps communities healthy both economically and socially.

Levine is not alone in his efforts to make democratic deliberation more civil.  Washington state’s Secretary of State Sam Reed recently announced his retirement and used the platform to urge civility in politics.  2012 Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has pledged to run a “civil campaign” and respect his political adversaries. 

Civility and deliberative discourse are not easy, and not cheap.  They take time, investment, and patience with others whose political opinions differ from ours.  Yet with efforts from universities, foundations, local governments, and citizens, creating a political culture that does not tolerate incivility is possible.

Secondly, I was named to the Lodestar Day Resource Center’s (LDRC) Board of Directors.  The LDRC is the largest day program for the homeless in downtown Phoenix.  LDRC is an amazing organization that sees homeless people as individuals and works with them holistically.  LDRC is also a leader in social entrepreneurship, with the establishment of Just-B.   Just-B sells homemade soaps and organic body butters and lotions, creating and providing jobs for those who have experienced homelessness, and raising money for the LDRC.  The LDRC is a part of the Human Services Campus in downtown Phoenix – a model for other cities across the country as a conglomeration of organizations providing beds, showers, food, medical care, dental care, mental health services, a post office, veterans’ services, employment skills, addiction recovery services, and even art therapy and yoga for the homeless all in one location in downtown Phoenix.