Data Jam: Equity in Education

How equitable is our education system? The Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) contains a massive repository of information from nearly every public school in the country—but data is just noise until someone tells its story.

Join us for a hands-on Data Jam where we’ll dive into the CRDC to identify trends, highlight disparities, and visualize the reality of the student experience.

What We’ll Be Exploring
Participants can choose to join a "track" or bring their own question to the table. Potential areas of focus include:

• The Discipline Gap: Analyzing disparities in suspension and expulsion rates across demographics.
• Resource Equity: Comparing access to "Gatekeeper" courses (Algebra I, Physics, Calculus) in different zip codes.
• Staffing & Support: Looking at the ratio of school counselors vs. security officers.
• Digital Divide: Mapping out schools with lower access to technology and high-speed internet.

Schedule
6:00 PM: Networking & Pizza (The "Data Fuel")
6:30 PM: Dataset Overview & Domain Deep Dive
7:30 PM: Rapid-fire Demos & Findings
8:00 PM: Wrap-up & Next Steps

What to Bring
A Laptop: Power cord included!
Tools of Choice: Whether you use Python, R, Tableau, Excel, or a sketchbook—all tools are valid.
Curiosity: No prior experience with the CRDC is required. We will provide clean data subsets to help you get started quickly.