I was surprised at the number of emails I’ve received during my hiatus from the blog from readers who were looking for web sites offering information and basic data on issues of importance to the community. Listed below are a few sites I’ve recommended to folks, and these have also been added to the side bar on the right.
Education Links:
• PA Department of Education issues a Report Card for each public school, and this link in to their searchable data base.
• openPAgov.org is a project of the Commonwealth Foundation, an independent, non-profit research and educational institute. They present data in a very clear manner, and I’ve included these 4 links to their searchable data base of Pennsylvania’s public schools:
• Tax Data. Offers data on property taxes, taxes per student, analysis of all revenue sources searchable by County or District.
• Payroll Data. Has data on employees’ salaries, highest salaries by district, searchable by employee name, district or school by position and gender.
• Spending Data. Has data on spending and enrollment trends, district spending detail and allows users to compare district information.
• Performance Data. Includes achievement trends by group, school or district. Allows users to analyze district spending and achievement and poverty and achievement
The Community / Non Profit section has two links so far:
• Delaware Valley United Way is a web site offering information on the locally directed United Way organizations.
• Guidestar. With a free registration, Guidestar offers a searchable data base of non-profit organizations and access to information on their governance, mission and financial reporting.
The Government and Politics link are self-explanatory.
Let me know what you think, and if you have a suggestion for a site of interest please pass it on.
