Educational Performance and Family Income: Diamonds on the soles of scholarship?

Introduction

Two young girls entering elementary school in Boston aspire to be doctors. Both come from two-parent, one-income families with two siblings. In 13 years and with hard work, assuming all other variables equal, how will their SAT scores compare given that one comes from an impoverished household and the other from a household that is well-to-do?

Is there a relationship between educational performance and family income in the State of Massachusetts, and how might that relationship be illustrated?

Using geographic information systems (GIS), it is possible to combine academic test score information by school district with family income data gathered from the US Census to make a series of maps that illustrate income and educational performance across the state, and then analyze the geographic patterns of these maps.

Location

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, USA

Time to complete the lab

Two hours

Prerequisites

Cursory familiarity with ArcGIS software

Data used in this lab

School district boundaries, town boundaries, test scores, census data

Geographic coordinate system: NAD 1983

Datum: NAD 1983

Projected coordinate system: Massachusetts Mainland State Plane (meters)