A Practical Guide to Analytics for Governments

CHAPTER 3Education

Nadja Young

INTRODUCTION

Education, then, beyond all other divides of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery.¹

—Horace Mann

Julie was born to two teenage parents, in a trailer, in rural South Carolina. Winters brought her parents the tough decision of paying for food or heat. They opted for food and set up blanket tents in the trailer for Julie and her brother to sleep beneath to generate body heat. Throughout elementary and middle school, Julie’s teachers regularly documented concerns in her permanent file about how her home life was impacting her schooling.

Nadja was raised by a single mother who was on and off government assistance in Virginia. Nadja’s father spent 15 years in federal prison. Her mother had stints in mental health institutions and county jail at different times in her childhood. Social services temporarily removed Nadja from her home after 35 days of being absent or tardy in the fourth grade.

Early data paints a picture of two girls with the odds stacked against them who probably should have been low achieving. Low income, check. Parents without college degrees, check. Chronic absenteeism, check. One fatherless home with crime and mental illness, double check. Both girls had parents who loved them, but who were ill-prepared and ill-equipped to provide the life structure needed for academic success. Yet, both girls went on to graduate from college, earn graduate degrees, and become ...