Activity - (using online statistics)

One goal of this activity is to introduce you some websites in which you can find reliable information (statistics) about education in America which you can use to support your arguments in your research. The second goal is to learn how to transfer data tables from websites to Excel and how to use Excel to organize or sort such data.

1- Go to the web site of National Center for Education Statistics at

http://nces.ed.gov/

· Go to Data Tools/ State District Profiles and choose NAEP State Comparisons.

· Use the given tool to make a table showing all states’ average in 4^th grade Mathematics and gender differences for the year 2013.

· Click on “next step” button to see the results.

· Use the sort button of the website to sort data desscendingly and identify the rank for California (combined gender).

· Copy and paste the table into Excel.

· Locate the rank for California and report the rank here (combined gender) at the end of your excel file. .

· Save and send the Excel file to BeachBoard.

2- Go to the website of California STAR Program at http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2012/

· Select “Test Results Search”

· Use the tool to get CST reports for a sample school. Copy the resulting table in Excel

· Do the same thing for another school that you want to compare (you have to do this for both schools one at a time)

· Copy and paste both tables in Excel.

· Compare the performance of the two schools (e.g., the percentage and the number of AP students) ) and write a few sentences to explain your comparison.

3- Go to the Los Angeles Times website at http://projects.latimes.com/value-added

· Use the tool to find two 2 schools to compare. You will see charts like this in which you can see how good is the teacher or the school in comparison with others.

· Write 1 paragraph to explain your opinion about this site. Is it a good idea to post these data online?