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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Educated Reporter: Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

The Educated Reporter: Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

Salary databases: Lots of data, lots of interest ... except from me.

Several times a year, a reporter contacts me and asks what to do with the database of teacher salaries they just acquired. When a journalist asks me whether or not to write about a piece of research that just arrived on his desk, if I don’t think there is a story there, I feel comfortable saying no. When the reporter has FOIA’d his tail off and massaged the ensuing data to the nth degree and then some, “I don’t think there is a story there” is not a very useful response.

Yet. I look at these Excel spreadsheets and too often say to myself, “So what?” Don’t get me wrong: I think