With a PhD in statistical astrophysics, David Corliss is lead, Industrial Business Analytics, and manager, Data Science Center of Excellence, Stellantis. He serves on the steering committee for the Conference on Statistical Practice and is the founder of Peace-Work, a volunteer cooperative of statisticians and data scientists providing analytic support for charitable groups and applying statistical methods in issue-driven advocacy

Education advocacy has a special place in Data for Good, partly for addressing such an important issue and also for how it builds the future. Martin Luther King Jr. often said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Education is one of the most potent forces bending the arc of history toward justice, making education advocacy one of the most impactful areas of Data for Good.

Educational advocacy also holds a special significance to me as the subject of one of my first research projects—“now-casting” the number of homeless students by state using several years of retrospective reports, enabling program managers to base their projects on the situation on the ground instead of data from several years before.

Education is such a multidimensional area that many, many organizations strive to make an impact. As a result, there are far more data sources than there are people to analyze them.

Education advocacy offers opportunities for everyone in the D4G community, including students, first-time volunteers, and people with many years of experience. Many skills are needed, from wrangling the basic data to exploratory analysis, modeling, and writing and presenting the results. That makes it a great place to form a team with a diverse skill set.

All types and levels of education need analytic support, so there is sure to be a project that matches your interests. A number of areas haven’t been studied well and really need more attention. While college education gets a lot of attention (but still more is needed), the impact of vocational education on the economy and people’s lives is one of the most overlooked subjects in education today. Intersectionality is another important but under-studied area of educational advocacy, where the combined impact of education with other issues is considered.

One hot topic right now is the impact of COVID-19 on education and developing mitigation strategies to help students and programs overcome the effects of the pandemic.

One of my favorite parts of writing this column is shining a light on organizations making a positive impact and how they use analytics. At the ASA’s Conference on Statistical Practice in February, I heard about a program helping students become the first in their family to attend and complete college. The College Crusade is a state-level program in Rhode Island targeting middle- and high-school students from low-income urban school districts. Its goal is to support, encourage, and mentor students, setting them on a path to higher education.

The concept is simple and powerful: Starting early to nurture students over a period of years, The College Crusade staff change the lives of the students, their families, and the wider community. The program is supported in part by the US Department of Education’s Gear Up program, which follows cohorts of students beginning no later than the seventh grade and connects them with state, local, and individual partners to prepare them for post-secondary education. Gear Up, which stands for “Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs,” also provides funding for college scholarships.

Making all this happen requires a lot of support in data and evaluation. I had a chance to talk with ASA member Erin Twomey-Wilson, evaluation and research specialist at The College Crusade, about how analytics plays an essential role in their life-changing mission. She oversees data collection and management, identifies KPIs and develops program metrics, analyzes the impact of the programs’ impact on the students, and presents the results. Like many other D4G organizations, The College Crusade
partners with many organizations. This makes establishment of a database serving a varied group of stakeholders a challenging but essential analytic task.

Twomey-Wilson also works with other researchers from the state and at universities to provide the science needed to strengthen programs and deliver high-impact results. The College Crusade in Rhode Island and other Gear Up programs are examples of statistical science making a difference in students’ lives that go far beyond the classroom. Setting an example for other D4G programs, they and others like them are bending the arc of history for a more just world.