I will review the use of benchmarks in 4 data visualizations by the New York Times. Before I start, I would like to say that it was rather difficult to find them; I only found these 4 after scouring several dozens, maybe even a hundred, and I do not think that I was being picky about what count. Furthermore, the first two graphs are from the Upshot, a section of the New York Times devoted to data visualizations, and the last two are from a New York Times piece entitled: 2024: The Year in Visual Stories and Graphics.
The first two graphs plot the admissions/attendance (we can view them as the same, although they have different meanings) rate of students with the same standardized test scores but different parents' income rank. The preference for students with wealthy parents is clearly seen in both graphs (despite a less clear picture for lower income ranks). The inclusion of the average rate allows the reader to see the disparity between the poor and the wealthy. For example, in the second graph, it is easy to see that poorer students are substantially disadvantaged while wealthier students are dramatically advantaged.
To provide some context, wealthy students are likelier to be admitted in multiple ways: they have less family financial stress and thus more time and money for extracurricular activities and also access to schools with more resources and tutors. Not only do they generally have higher test scores, but they are still inherently preferred by "legacy admissions, the recruitment of athletes, and a preference for students from private 'feeder' high schools" states the second article, even when accounting for differences in test scores. President Trump's attempt to enforce a policy of merely considering test scores and grades will favor the rich, and thus disadvantage Black and Hispanic students who are more likely to be poor.
This graph compares the relative sea level rise of 4 northeast American cities against the global sea level rise for the last century. Because the area between both lines is the only area shaded, it dominates the graph, so it is extremely easy to intuit the abnormally higher sea levels of the locales compared to the global sea levels. Even without the helpful shading, the doubled height of the sea levels compared to the norm would still be apparent and induce concern.
For context, climate change is still causing sea levels to rise but global sea levels would rise the same everywhere. For these cities, it is the case that as the underground aquifers in these regions have been depleted for human purposes, the land cave in and compress, literally sinking.
This table demonstrates how various states voted through ballots to change abortion laws. Each state has a bar to show the percentage of support it received for its specific abortion law change and its own benchmark line for each bar which denotes the percentage needed for the change to go through. It is very useful to see how much more was needed for a pass (for example, South Dakota with its very strict abortion laws needed a considerable amount compared to Florida and Nebraska who were very close to passing) and to what degree a state surpassed its needed percentage (for example, Maryland was almost 25% past its needed percentage). It is a very small and simple visualization but helps to give impact to the numbers, especially for those with low numeracy skills. (We can also note the peculiar 60% requirement for Florida).
No comments:
Post a Comment