This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
With a sustained and steady effort, the Notebook won the Open Data Race! At midnight when the race ended, we were solidly in first place with nearly 600 votes. We could not have done any of this without the help of our friends and supporters. THANK YOU!
Our first-place finish comes with a $2,000 prize. But more importantly, we hope to share this success with you – access to important, detailed data from the School District and the National Student Clearinghouse on whether and where Philadelphia public school students go on to college and how they do there.
The Notebook reported on some early findings from this data set last year and in our Summer 2011 edition, college-going rates for individual high schools are now part our Fall Guide to High Schools. Now, we look forward to working with the School District of Philadelphia to more fully access the data. The information will help us do further reporting about successes and challenges in getting students ready for post-secondary success. We also plan to make the data more easily accessible for students, parents, guidance counselors, and everyone involved in helping Philadelphia students get to college.
We are grateful to the organizers of the competition for this opportunity, for the exciting race, and for bringing attention to the need to uncover important data sets so that the public can have access.
As always, our success depends on the support of our loyal members and readers. This success is THANKS TO YOU!