A Shortage of Data Analysts, Data on Student Absences Proves Fruitful

As the public sector tries to understand how to use data better, a variety of challenges appear. There are the obvious ones, like resistance on the part of decision makers and issues with privacy laws. But as we’ve been interviewing performance auditors in all 50 states, one major issue keeps cropping up. It has nothing to do with giant computer brains, and everything to do with regular-sized human brains. There’s a great shortage of data scientists and analysts in the United States. The lack of sufficiently trained men and women for these jobs affects both the public and private sectors. McKinsey and Company has reported that "the United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with analytical expertise and 1.5 million managers and analysts with the skills to understand and make decisions based on the analysis of big data." As a result, a city, state or county can spend lots of time and money producing crushing quantities of new information, without it having the kind of real-world impact that’s dependent on a sophisticated workforce to appropriately utilize it.   
 

It’s common sense to think that students who are absent more are likely to learn less. But a new study about school absences takes this notion a step further. Using Massachusetts data, the study finds that this correlation is particularly troublesome as schools try to help launch low-income students on a path toward success The study finds a significant effect of individual student absences on their test scores and notes that low-income students are absent with greater frequency -- possibly due to transportation difficulties -- than students who are not poor.

The National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, titled "Flaking Out: Student Absences and Snow Days as Disruptions of Instructional Time", notes that "poor students in Massachusetts are absent an average of 10.1 days a year, non-poor students just 6.9 days. Just 2 percent of non-poor students have more than 30 absences. More than 6 percent of poor students do"

According to a NBER digest summary of the paper's conclusions "poor attendance can account for up to a quarter of the math achievement gap between poor and non-poor students."
 

“What strategies ‘work’ in reducing crime and disorder in policing?” asks the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy at George Mason University. In order to answer that question, the Center organized over 130 studies and created a matrix that it will update this spring. The matrix organizes the studies in such a way that policy makers and researchers can see what seems to be happening with various initiatives.

The value of this work is easily seen by a finding about so-called “second” responder programs that address domestic violence. Police and social workers originally thought it would be a good idea for police to return to the house of a victim of domestic or elder abuse to provide more information after the initial visit. It turns out that, according to multiple studies, there is a "statistically significant backfire" effect. One study cited by this effort found that “those that receive Family Violence Response Team treatment have a 1.7 times greater rate of re-abuse."
 

Recently we indicated that online education offered by colleges and universities in America may not be a good tool for financial savings, as one might expect. Hours after release of the Report, we received a very thoughtful email from Steven Thomas, Fiscal Officer of Eastern Ohio Public Health. It was perhaps something we should have mentioned in that piece. 

As Thomas wrote: “When looking at the costs of online education offered by colleges and universities in America, the study may not factor in opportunity costs for students who may not be able to attend any other way.” He points out that any costs of online courses have to be weighed against the benefits that come from a more expansively educated nation. “I have two sons,” he wrote, “who drive trucks while attending college online. The one has a wife and two children. If he was not working they would not be eating. ... Without on line learning, he would be stuck for life driving a truck or some other low-education-type job earning in a $15 to $30 thousand a year range. With online learning, he is advancing his education and plans to end up with a job that allows him to be home more often and support his family.”

This story was originally published by Governing.