Read On Arizona, a statewide literacy initiative, launched a new interactive map that allows users to track education data relevant to early literacy.
Accessible data include attendance, school retention rates, chronic absences, demographics, school locations and district boundaries, district and school ratings, assessment scores and more.
The tool, which Read On Arizona is calling “MapLIT,” does not include information about middle or high schools, as it was intended to focus on early literacy. Data on individual students are also not available in accordance with federal privacy laws.
“The main reason it was created was to help communities have access to the kinds of data that would be helpful in creating strategic plans around improving early literacy outcomes,” said Terri Clark, the literacy director for Read On Arizona.
Some health data, including number of emergency visits for asthma, are available. Results from a survey about early literacy, which included questions such as “During the past week, how many days did you or other family members tell stories or sing songs to your child/children?” were also included.
The interactive tool is the product of a multiagency collaboration, Clark said. The state Education and Health Services departments, the Maricopa Association of Governments and First Things First, which conducted the survey, were partners in the project.
It was funded by Maricopa County-based Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.
“This is a wonderful example of agencies and partners working together to make data available to communities so that they can make data-driven decisions,” Clark said.
Users can sort through the data with various filters, including searching by elementary or preschool, school district, region or a user-selected range.
A map such as this one could be used by organizations helping students to identify their needs and where those needs are, said Betty Stauffer, executive director of Literacy Connects, a Tucson-based nonprofit promoting literacy for all ages.
Her first impression: “This is really cool.
“You can see the families below poverty in a given area, which is often a statistic we need when we’re writing grants,” she said.
Literacy Connects runs programs in various schools and has ways of identifying the schools with the most need, she said. Data from this map could help that process.
“I’m certainly going to share it with the rest of the staff,” said Stauffer. “I think a number of them would find it useful in the work they do.”
