Rambling Thought by Scott

This post will take a quick look at graduation rates at public high schools in Lancaster County.  The data comes from the   2015-2016 Pennsylvania 4-Year Cohort Graduation Rate tables  and the National Center for Education Statistics . Below is an interactive map of Lancaster County's public high schools.  The schools are indicated by the circles on the map.  A larger circle indicates a relatively higher graduation rate and the blue color scale represents the total number of graduates, with lighter blue indicating relatively fewer graduates and a darker blue representing a higher number of graduates. The map also has 2017 per-person income by zip code layered in to provide additional insight. The wealthiest zip codes are in the areas north of Lancaster city. If it looks like McCaskey Campus is missing from the map, it's because the 100 % graduation rate at La Academia Partnership Charter School causes the circle to overlap it.  If you zoom in on the c...

My first post is focused on comparing Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and its largest city, Lancaster, to a handful of counties and their respective largest cities.  The comparable counties were selected for one of two reasons. The first was if they are located in the same region as Lancaster. This is the case for York, Cumberland, Dauphin, and Lebanon Counties.  The second was if the counties have certain attributes that I think make them an interesting comparison to Lancaster.  The most common characteristic for the second group is their proximity to major urban areas. Cumberland County, ME; Pierce County, WA; Sacramento County, CA; Milwaukee County, WI; Lehigh County, PA; and Lackawanna County, PA are all located within a one to two hour drive of major metropolitan areas. This makes them an interesting comparison to Lancaster--which is about a 1.5 hour drive from Philadelphia.  Travis County, TX; Davidson County, TN; and Buncombe County; NC were all selected becau...