Philadelphia Community Schools Use New Tool To Plan Ahead
by Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As Philadelphia's nine community schools design their futures, the process is being helped by a so-called "stress index."
After the mayor's office identified its nine "Community Schools" in line for neighborhood supports, the question was: What do they need?
"In terms of thinking about solutions that people might want to pursue, or areas they might want to prioritize, we wanted to make sure that people had that rooted in data," said Susan Gobreski, the mayor's Director for Community Schools.
One tool being used to tailor those supports is a "stress index," a digital city map displaying hot spots of poverty, drug crimes, access to healthy food, education levels, and the like.
The Mayor's Office of Education developed the index to help the nine community schools identify their needs, says data analyst Miguel Garces.
"It anchors the conversation in a way that forces people to take the data seriously. You can't really speak in generalities or anecdotes when the data is right there presented to you," he said.
The index is available only to city employees now, but plans are to release it to the public in a month or so.
