Excel: NCES Chart

For this assignment, I used state reading statistics provided by NCES to create an excel spreadsheet and a scatter plot. First, I selected my search criteria from the choices NCES provides to the public. As shown in the image below, I selected 4th grade, reading, and gender as my comparison criteria.

After the chart was generated, I downloaded it and exported it to an excel file. In excel, I computed descriptive statistics for the total score, sorted the spreadsheet by totals, and created a scatter pot with my findings as shown below.

 

As shown in the scatter plot above, Virginia was ranked 9th in 2011 in terms of reading scores. We are six points above average with 41 states behind us. I think it's absolutely wonderful that we are ranked so high and I can't wait to see the 2012 comparisons to see if we climbed the charts!