Photo by Jannis Lucas on Unsplash.
Every year, American high school students take SATs, which are standardized tests intended to measure literacy, numeracy, and writing skills. There are three sections - reading, math, and writing, each with a maximum score of 800 points. These tests are extremely important for students and colleges, as they play a pivotal role in the admissions process.
Analyzing the performance of schools is important for a variety of stakeholders, including policy and education professionals, researchers, government, and even parents considering which school their children should attend.
You have been provided with a dataset called schools.csv, which is previewed below.
You have been tasked with answering three key questions about New York City (NYC) public school SAT performance.
# Re-run this cell
import pandas as pd
# Read in the data
schools = pd.read_csv("schools.csv")
# Preview the data
schools.head()
# Start coding here...
# Add as many cells as you like...
# Making a simple calculation to define the minimum score to be considering a
# top school, which is 640 points, 80% of 800 total.
percentage = 0.8
maximum_score = 800
minimum_score = maximum_score * percentage
# Which schools are best for math?
best_math_schools = schools[schools['average_math'] > minimum_score][['school_name', 'average_math']].sort_values('average_math', ascending = False)
best_math_schools.head(10)# Calculate total_SAT per school
schools['total_SAT'] = schools[['average_math', 'average_reading', 'average_writing']].sum(axis=1)
schools.head()# Who are the top 10 performing schools?
top_10_schools = schools.sort_values('total_SAT', ascending = False)[['school_name', 'total_SAT']].head(10)
top_10_schools.head(10)# Which NYC borough has the highest standard deviation for total_SAT?
boroughs = schools.groupby("borough")["total_SAT"].agg(["count", "mean", "std"]).round(2)
boroughs.head()# Filter for max std and make borough a column
largest_std_dev = boroughs[boroughs["std"] == boroughs["std"].max()]
largest_std_dev.head()# Rename the columns for clarity
largest_std_dev = largest_std_dev.rename(columns={"count": "num_schools", "mean": "average_SAT", "std": "std_SAT"})
largest_std_dev.head()Analysis Summary This project explores the SAT performance of New York City high schools, focusing on math, reading, and writing scores across various boroughs. Here are the key findings:
Top 10 High-Performing Schools:
The highest performing schools include Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science, and Staten Island Technical High School, with Stuyvesant High School achieving the highest total SAT score of 2144. Borough Comparison:
Manhattan has the highest variability in SAT scores, with a standard deviation of 230.29. This reflects a wide range in academic performance among its schools. Average SAT Scores by Borough:
Staten Island has the highest average SAT score (1439), while the Bronx has the lowest (1202.72), indicating differences in academic performance across boroughs.