Recent Posts

What we learned analyzing data on students experiencing homelessness for Wisconsin’s DPI In 2024, we worked with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth team to analyze data on students experiencing homelessness. We were so impressed by the team’s knowledge of the students and schools they were trying to serve – and were really struck… Read more: Uncovering Wisconsin’s hidden fifth largest school district

Who will study how to retrain education researchers for the new economy? This edition of the Civic Pulse is off to a cheeky start as Jared was speculating earlier in the week about whether there are currently more coal miners or education researchers. Determining the current number of coal miners – about 40k – is easy thanks to the gold standard… Read more: Are education researchers going the way of coal miners?

Civilytics’ statement on slashing the Department of Education’s research The Civic Pulse has been on an unplanned 14-month hiatus as we were blessed with lots of interesting projects keeping us busy. Now it’s back, making an unplanned reappearance, because lots of those projects were abruptly canceled last week with the termination of most contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). To… Read more: The Headlines Hit Home: “Terminated for Convenience”

We won our first research grant and we’re excited! Early this year we were awarded a research grant from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Grant Program funded by the National Science Foundation. Our proposal was titled: Equity analysis at a large scale: Using small area estimation to get the most from the CRDC school arrest data and Hannah and… Read more: Measuring equity equitably

Plus why the timesheet and benefits portals at your job are so bad As I logged into two separate government “vendor portals” to submit invoices and type in the same business information I have input dozens of times before, I was reminded of how frustrating the software we are forced to use every day can be. For the most part,… Read more: The invisible tech monopolies holding back democracy

At Civilytics, we’ve seen firsthand the higher burden advocates face when seeking to use data to make change. That’s why we were excited to partner with Tableau on creating a 5-step guide to #defendyourdata.

In memory of Jim Knowles Content warning: grief, loss of a parent A little over a month ago, on May 7th, my dad, Jim Knowles, passed away unexpectedly. He was 66 years old. For me, the world just kind of stopped. My dad and I were very close and I’m still figuring out my way forward.  I’m breaking from our… Read more: Thank you, Dad