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Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation: Effective Access and Use -- Presented at American Education Research Association 2004 Annual Conference The paper "Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation: Effective Access and Use" by Warren Glimpse and Catherine Wightman was presented at the American Education Research Association (http://www.aera.net) 2004 Annual Conference, April 12-16, in San Diego, CA. Download the paper (PDF) here: http://proximityone.com/sdst0413b.pdf. The paper reviews the structure, means of access, and ways to effectively use the Census 2000 School District Special Tabulation (SDST). Most of the SDST was completed in August 2003, with some parts being developed in 2004. The SDST is the most comprehensive source of data on children's demographics and their living environment. The data are summarized by school district, making it also the only source of demographic data that can be used analyze the demographic make-up of school districts in the U.S. The SDST provides unique data for the analysis of the population enrolled in public and private schools and not enrolled in school. SDST data may be accessed via the Web at http://proximityone.com/sdd.htm. Without software that has been developed to make SDST data extraction and integration for analysis easier, users of the SDST data face at least two challenges in using the data. First, the data are provided for a range of tabulation universes making it difficult for even more experienced users of the data to determine what subject matter is available and how to retrieve the data. Second, taken as a whole, these data sit in isolation from other key data. Since the most powerful uses of the SDST data involve integrating these demographics with other data, such as performance and outcome data, it is a challenge to develop and use the right tools to merge the data. The paper reviews software that has been developed to make SDST data extraction and integration for analysis easier. One focus of the paper is on methods of integrating data from the SDST with other data resources (school, attendance area, administrative, achievement, and other geographic data). Another focus of the paper is on the use of GIS tools and geospatial analysis of SDST data integrated with school (building), attendance areas, neighborhoods, and street segment level geography. Perspectives on longitudinal uses of the SDST are also covered in the paper. [goto top] |
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