Data Dive 2.6

What does a school job actually pay?

Two true answers can be very far apart.

You will need paper and a pencil, and a browser for step 3

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Step 1 of 5 · Your guess

What do you think?

A post says the average worker in the Whittier Union High School District makes about $42,939 a year. It comes from the district's own public records, and it is true.

You know the people who work at a school: teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff, coaches.

Write it down before you lookWhen you read “the average worker,” who did you picture? Write down the job.
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Step 2 of 5 · Look

What eight school jobs pay

What one year of each job paid at Whittier Union High, 2023-2024Whittier Union High School District filings - the middle filed position of each job, names removedmiddle pay for one person in that job68,280136,5590136,559counsellor (93)134,593teacher (761)52,437bus driver (164)42,345aide (273)26,118kitchen (109)6,608substitute (272)4,322coach (404)892student job (494)

Whittier Union High School District, 2023-2024, names removed. The number in brackets is how many people had that job.

How to read it. Each bar is one job. Its height is what the person in the middle of that job earns: half made more, half made less.

Find out
  1. Find the teacher. Is it close to $42,939?
  2. Which jobs are close to $42,939?
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Step 3 of 5 · Try it

Now you try it, on the same data

This opens the pool, the site's chart tool. The words in bold below are buttons and menus you will see on the screen.

Do these five things

Open the pool on this file: data.sfhsbta.com/thepool?file=wuhsd_pay_by_job.csv&mark=boxplot

  1. Under across, pick job_title. Under up, pick total_pay. There are over two hundred jobs. That is too many to read, and that is what a school district is.
  2. Find a big job, with 20 or more people, whose middle pay is close to $42,939. Write the job down.
  3. Set keep to to 10,000 and count what is left. Name three of those jobs. Are they full-time jobs, or something else?
  4. Clear keep to. Under up, pick base_pay, which is pay without extras like overtime. First guess: will the middle move a lot, a little, or not at all? Then check.
  5. Pick one job you might want someday and find its middle pay.
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Step 4 of 5 · Say it

Your answer, in one sentence

I think the average school worker is <who you pictured, or not> because <what the chart shows> and I checked it by <what you did to the chart>.

The last part matters most. It shows you did not just look at the chart, you tested it.

Here is one exampleI think the average school worker is not a teacher, because a teacher in the middle earns $134,593, and the average counts coaching stipends and student jobs too. I checked by setting keep to to 10,000 and counting the paychecks left.
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Step 5 of 5 · What you found

Check your numbers

$134,593
what the teacher in the middle earns
$42,345
a special education aide, the big job closest to the average
1,465 of 4,437
paychecks under $10,000: coaching, substitute days, student jobs
$37,532
the middle of base pay alone, without extras
The big idea: say who you meanEvery number about a group depends on who is in the group. $42,939 counts every paycheck, including coaches and student jobs. A teacher's number counts only teachers. Both are true. Before you trust an average, ask who was counted.
One more thing to think aboutThis file has people's names taken out on purpose. Why might a chart about your own school be one you would want to keep anonymous?
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After the dive

The charts you used today

the box plot

The middle half of the data sits in the box. It shows the spread, not how many.

What it leaves outThe box hides how many. Five values and five hundred draw the same box, and a gap in the middle of the data does not show at all.
the bar

Bar length is the value, so it only means anything measured from zero. Start the axis anywhere else and the lengths stop matching the numbers.

What it leaves outOrder is a choice. Sorted by size it is a ranking; sorted by name it is a lookup; and the same bars say different things in each.

library · ladder · dives · the pool · this dive’s worksheet

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