Analyze school and standardized test data to identify trends in school performance, including how factors such as school size, budget, and type impact test scores.
- Libraries: Pandas
- Tools: Jupyter Notebook
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District Summary
- Aggregated district-wide standardized test results to create a high-level overview of key metrics.
- Metrics include:
- Total number of schools and students
- Total budget
- Average math and reading scores
- Percentage of students passing math and reading
- Overall passing percentage
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School Summary
- Generated a detailed summary of key metrics for each school.
- Metrics include:
- School type
- Total number of students (school size)
- Total and per-student budgets
- Average math and reading scores
- Percentage of students passing math and reading
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Reading Scores vs. Math Scores
- Reading scores are generally higher than math scores across all school types.
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Impact of Budget on Performance
- Higher spending per student (e.g., $645–$675) did not correlate with better test results.
- Schools with lower spending (e.g., <$585 per student) often performed better.
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School Size and Performance
- Smaller and medium-sized schools significantly outperformed larger schools in math performance:
- Small/Medium Schools: 89-91% passing
- Large Schools: 67% passing
- Smaller and medium-sized schools significantly outperformed larger schools in math performance:
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Charter Schools vs. Public District Schools
- Charter schools outperformed public district schools across all metrics.
- Additional analysis is needed to determine whether this is due to school practices or smaller student populations in charter schools.
This project demonstrates the value of exploratory data analysis in identifying key performance drivers in education. Future work could include:
- Investigating specific practices of high-performing schools.
- Exploring demographic or geographic factors that influence test performance.