Slices

Education Guide

Course Content

Next time you look at a dataset, here are a few ways to consider slicing it to find a noteworthy positive deviant. This table is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to spur your imagination a bit. For more on the Slices approach, see the Core Toolkit.

StrategyDescriptionEducation Example
Change Over Time
Which place has made newsworthy improvement?

High poverty, high test scores: Auburn school is a shouting success

The Seattle Times

Comparison to Peers
Which place is doing better than its comparable peers?

Live From Woodburn High

OPB FM

Method/Best Practice
Which place is succeeding with innovative new ideas?

From Class to Career

WAMU Breaking Ground

Coverage
Which place has greatly expanded access to a solution?

How One School District Used Buses to Bring the Internet Home

Pacific Standard

Subgroup
Which place has improved outcomes for a particular population?

MPS looks to Oakland model to work differently with African-American Boys

MinnPost

Policy
Which government has instituted successful new policies to solve a problem?

Los Angeles policy shift yields decline in school suspensions

Los Angeles Daily News

Disparity
Which place has reduced racial, geographic or socioeconomic disparities in outcomes?

Northfield program shrinks Latino achievement gap

MPR News

Cost
Which place has maintained good service while reducing costs?

How this private college maintains a $1 billion endowment without charging tuition

Business Insider