The Urban School Needs project has been started by Iridescent to determine whether they are operating in the high-need areas in Los Angeles. They asked us to develop a visualization tool that would help to depict and visualize possible interesting patterns in the available data. We are manipulating a combination of existing data (zip code income, education and crime and school API and crime) and survey data (measuring teacher and parent commitment). This data will be represented in a interactive visualization tool that will help not only Iridescent, but other urban education providers and funders as well to allocate resources more efficiently.
The interactive maps will be freely available to all and the hope is that it will also help schools become more transparent and accountable.