American Institutes for Research
2021
In 2021, I spent the summer working with the American Institutes for Research to visualized the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data. I created two complementary reports for different stakeholders. The first report, for parents and teachers, featured an animated, engaging ‘racing internet cable’ chart, to show how access to the internet increases over time. The second report, for researchers and policy makers, featured a bubble plot that showed the same data, but highlighted the difference from pre-pandemic initiatives to increased funding during the pandemic. I used Altair, Streamlit, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe After Effects to design and create a high-fidelity mock up of these visualization reports. You can view the original streamlit app here.
More recently (2024), I have updated some of the charts to showcase the main insights from the data and to feature them directly on my website. First, there is an interactive plot that shows the access to internet increasing over time. Viewers can use a dropdown select tool to highlight their state to follow it over time and compare it to other states in their region and across the state. Next, a line chart shows the internet gap between low-income households and high-income households shrinking over time. Finally, a bubble chart showcases the number of pre-pandemic policy initiatives of each state.
The digital divide refers to the gap between people who do not have access to the internet or digital devices and those that do. Increasing digital equity has been a goal for many states over the years, and this effort has been galvanized by the pandemic and the need to move education to distance learning. From 2009 to 2021, the percentage of students who have access to internet at home has increased for all states and the gap between the bottom and top states has narrowed over time.
Use the dropdown selector below to choose your state to see how it compares to the national average and similar states.
There is a smaller percentage of low-income students that have access to internet at home. In low-income households, broadband internet might be too expensive to afford. Over time, this gap has decreased to 4%, with low-income household students at 95% and high-income household students at 99%.
Policy initiatives can increase access to internet. Before the pandemic, most states had several of these initiatives, with Virginia taking the lead with 16 intiatives. The pandemic has further galvanized efforts to increase access to the internet.
Data from NCES's National Report Card and Pew Charitable Trust.