Data Mining from Education Databases Examine the Factors Impacting the School Performance in the United States

Abstract

Preface: The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) required each state to develop their own method to evaluate individual schools' improvement every year, and states also need to set up an index, called the adequate yearly progress (AYP), as a goal for schools to meet every year. However, what might be the possible factors impacting schools fail to make AYP? Purposes: The purposes of this paper are employing the factor analysis to identify factors which can explain the variation of percentages of schools being identified as in need of improvement Under NCLB regulations. Method: Three educational Databases were used. The correlation and regression analysis are used to examine the degree of relationship between these factors. Results: The percentage of minority students is the main factor impacting the school performance. That is, schools with higher percentage of minority students would more likely fail to make AYP.