- SWBAT explore data used in news and in rhetoric.
- SWBAT differentate between data and information.
- SWBAT recognize how data can be used to control human behavior.
- SWBAT differentiate kinds of data and different uses for data.
Below is an excerpt from "'Forced busing' didn't fail. Desegregation is the best way to improve our schools." by George Theoharis, Syracuse professor, published in The Washington Post on October 23, 2015.
Before reading the excerpt:
- Based on the title, what argument do you think the author, Theoharis, is going to make?
- Based on the title, what data do you think the author will use to support his point?
- Based on the subtitle - "Racial achievement gaps were narrowest at the height of school integration." - what issue(s) do you think the author perceives are problematic today?
Consider the following excerpt:
Two miles from my office in Syracuse, N.Y., Westside Academy Middle School has been in need of repairs for decades. Located in one of the nation's poorest census tracts, 85 percent of its students are black or Latino, and 86 percent are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The 400 students have limited creative outlets, with no orchestra or band and just two music teachers.
Ten miles away, Wellwood Middle School, in a suburban district, offers students a stately auditorium and well-equipped technology rooms. There, 88 percent of the students are white and only 10 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The 700 students have at least five music teachers, band, orchestra, choir, musical theater and dozens of other clubs and activities.
Fifty percent of Wellwood’s eighth graders passed the state math assessment. At Westside, none did. The disparate student outcomes are no surprise.
- What data is used by the author to make his point?
- Do you think the data presented is fair and accurate?
- What are the limitations of the data presented in this piece?
- Based on this excerpt, what does the author want you to think about the state of segregation in schools?
The author continues:
["This American Life"] noted that, despite declarations that busing to desegregate schools failed in the 1970s and 1980s, that era actually saw significant improvement in educational equity. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress began in the early 1970s, there was a 53-point gap in reading scores between black and white 17-year-olds. That chasm narrowed to 20 points by 1988. During that time, every region of the country except the Northeast saw steady gains in school integration. In the South in 1968, 78 percent of black children attended schools with almost exclusively minority students; by 1988, only 24 percent did. In the West during that period, the figure declined from 51 percent to 29 percent.
But since 1988, when education policy shifted away from desegregation efforts, the reading test score gap has grown — to 26 points in 2012 — with segregated schooling increasing in every region of the country.
- What data is used by the author to make his point?
- Do you think the data presented is fair and accurate?
- Based on this excerpt, what does the author want you to think about the state of segregation in schools?
- How strong do you think the author's argument is? What would someone who disagreed say to make a counterargument?
When you've talked about data in the past, you may have used the words data and information interchangeably. Although they are quite similar, these two words have an important distinction:
- Data is comprised of the raw measurements, observations, or responses that would be collected from tools like feedback surveys, mechanical sensors, or even digital logs. Data can also be simple facts and figures that result from those raw measurements.
- Information is data that has been processed, interpreted, organized, structured or presented in a way that makes the data meaningful or useful. Information carries with it a point-of-view or an opinion because a human has made decisions about its meaning.
In addition to data and information, the terms insight and analysis often accompany a discussion about data. Insight or analysis is the understanding we get from data and information and usually relates to the decision-making capabilities that result from processing data into information.
- Look back at the excerpts above. Make a list of the data, information, and insights used by the author, Theoharis, to make his argument.
| Data | Information | Insight / Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| e.g. 400 students attend Westside Academy | e.g. 86% of Westside Academy students qualify for free/reduced lunch | e.g. Westside Academy is a disadvantaged school |
It's worth noting that while there is a distinction between data and information, those two terms are often used interchangeably. Knowing the difference between data and information is useful, but knowing the difference between data/information and analysis/insight is crucial. The number of students at the school is objective, but using the descriptor "a disadvantaged school" and what that should mean to readers can be debated.
Data does not exist in a neutral vacuum. Throughout history, data has been used both to positive and negative effect.
At its worst, data has been a justification for discrimination (GI Bill and black WWII veterans), a means by which to forcibly separate people (WWII internment of Japanese Americans), and a basis for all sorts of racist, sexist, xenophobic, and classist ills. Still today we see data being used to justify humanitarian crises around the world.
The intentional disregard for data poses a threat parallel to the use of data for nefarious purposes, especially when that disregard is coupled with political or business interests.
Perhaps the critical issue of our time where data has been misused by being unused is climate change. Despite scientific consensus about the correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and global temperature, politicians continue to ignore and deny the data, its interpretation, and its effects upon our planet.
Depending on the length of your class, the level of safety you've curated in class, and the lexile level of your students, you may want to have students read the above articles and discuss the data and the analysis they find contained therein, but that discussion is not necessary to progress through the lesson.
Depending on the level and volume of nonfiction reading your students have done prior to this class, you may be able to create this list or a similar one through a collaborative process with students. If this is the first time most of them have done a close reading of nonfiction argumentative texts, it may be wiser to simply give them this list and then refer back to it as they do their own reading.
Below are several ways data can be (or has been) misused.
- Data can be ignored. (e.g. climate change)
- Data can be selectively filtered. By not including all available data, a conclusion can be skewed in favor of a pre-determined outcome.
- Data can be used to group, segregate, round up, or otherwise disenfranchise a group of people. Census data is often cited as a means by which the government can assert control over specific sub-groups of the population.
- Data can be mis-interpreted. Too often the public lacks the skills to interpret data for themselves, so people accept the interpretation they are provided.
- Data can be used to violate privacy. Even though data providers claim data has been anonymized, sometimes there is still enough to find out exactly who someone is.
In what other ways can data be misused?
Imagine a bank that is trying to decide whether or not to give someone a loan. In addition to deciding whether or not to grant a loan, the bank can also set the interest rate at which the customer should pay back the loan.
In order to make the loan application easier, the bank has made an app for smart phones through which the application is filled out. Once the app has been installed on a user's phone, the app also requests access to the user's music libraries (iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc.). The bank knows that most users will not read the fine print in the Terms & Conditions of their app, and since most users will just want to get a loan, they'll agree to whatever the bank wants them to.
Can you think of ways data about a user's music listening might impact the decisions a bank would make about a loan? Take a moment to brainstorm with a partner.
Do you think the bank could tell what sex, race, age, or sexual orientation a user is just by the music they listen to? What specific correlations might a bank be able to use between specific artists or genres of music and dimensions of that user's identity? How might a bank view someone who listens primarily to bachata differently from someone who listens primarily to classical music?
Accessing a user's music listening history might indicate information about the user that the bank couldn't otherwise ask in order to discriminate against loan applicants.
- What other data exists on your phone that might be misused to violate your privacy?
These videos detail innovations in anti-discrimination technology:
- Discrimination innovation 2018 (video)
- Discrimination innovation 2017 (video)
The rise of partisan journalism has led to claims of "fake news" throughout the socio-political spectrum. "Fake news" has permeated elections, has destroyed careers, and is too-often used to deny any story someone disagrees with, whether the story is based in fact or not. But in reality, "fake news" is a symptom of the metrics by which user engagement is measured: clicks, views, and shares.
As information has become commoditized on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the techniques used by content-providers, marketers, and media outlets have been co-opted to guide users to tantalizingly wrong information, even if there is clear evidence that the information is completely made up.
The headline writing style made popular by websites like Upworthy - "You're not going to believe what happened next..." - which, once recognized as immensely effective at driving people to click and engage, was then used to sensationalize and polarize people's beliefs.
Note that this activity requires a level of maturity among students to differentiate between inflammatory reporting and truly made-up articles. If you worry about turning your students loose on this activity without parameters, you may prefer to source something that you find to be clearly fake, but not as emotionally charged as news about the 2016 election.
How can you distinguish real news from "fake news"?
Take a few minutes to consider how you can tell whether a news story is real or "fake". Write down at least 5 questions you would use to interrogate any news story and how the answers to those questions might lead you to label the story as real or "fake".
Find a news article online from a satirical news outlet such as The Onion, The Borowitz Report, or Private Eye.
Use your 5 questions to decide whether the news story is real or "fake". How well did your questions do at identifying "fake news"?
Now use your questions and re-evaluate the article we used at the beginning of class.. How well did your questions do at identifying "real" news?
- "The Misinformation Age" (PBS, Apr 22, 2019)
- PBS Newshour: Stories on "Misinformation"
- "Who, what, when, where, why do hyperpartisan news sites exist?" (PBS Newshour)
- Lesson plan: How teens deal with the spread of misinformation
- PBS Newshour: Tag: "Fake news"
As you continue to grapple with distinguishing real news from "fake news", you'll realize that you're building an intuition for how to read and understand data. That data might be numerical, but it also might be textual, contextual, or even visual.
The ability to digest and synthesize information is core to what is known as data literacy. Data literacy also includes the ability to critique data and information as well as a visual acuity to interpret data-based graphics such as data visualizations.
- Why should data literacy matter to you?
- How will data literacy help you better judge arguments?
- Who do you think ought to be "data literate"? Why?
- How can data literacy help you protect yourself online?
The close below assumes students will not have out-of-class time to think about this work, but if students are expected to do work outside of class, one potential assignment you can give them is to find an article that uses data, print it out, and highlight data/information in one color, and analysis/insights in another. Then students can come prepared for small-group discussions of whether the piece makes a compelling argument and what role the data plays in that argument.
We've seen a lot about how data is all around us and how that data can be used and misused, how it can produce information, and how that information can be used to gain insight about a problem.
Think of a civic issue you care deeply about. Give an example of data, of information, and of insight that you've seen (or that you'd want to see) about that issue.
e.g. On school performance, I'd want to see annual National Assessment of Educational Progress data, I'd want to use that data to see what percent of NYC schools are above and below average, and I'd want to use that information to understand whether NYC schools are improving or in decline.