The equality of opportunity project include data on economic and social mobility of students from hundreds of schools across the nation. My group thus far has gathered data on the top 20 schools based in mobility rate. Our idea is to compare these top 20 schools and see what characteristics they have in common. Perhaps if we study them closely we can figure out what it is that makes these schools so successful at moving students who come from the bottom 20% of the nation up to a higher earning potential.
The next logical step in our process should probably be to visualize the data we have for the top 20 schools now and find trends among these institutions. After, we have these trends, figuring why these attributes allow for a higher mobility rate might be one of our priorities. We may also want to compare these common traits to schools with a lower mobility rate in order to see what those schools can change to increase their respective rates.
Ideally by the end of the project we will be able to add on to the conversation about which elements in the school system offer students the chance to succeed in their undergraduate education. We may be able to combine our new found data with other groups and ultimately come to a different interpretation than what we originally thought as well.
