Did he say math??

Hearing from your professor that a guest speaker is coming to talk about how charts, figures and of all things math help to create a story doesn’t exactly scream interesting. It really doesn’t help that half the allure of being a journalism major is the lack of math. But after hearing Matt Doig from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune speak; math in its relation to journalism actually doesn’t seem that bad. In fact, it almost sounds like fun.

The use of public records has the ability to transform and even create a story. It is “irrefutable evidence.” The information gathered from public records has the ability to bring to light evidence that many people would like to keep buried in a dusty file in Tallahassee. Doig gave thorough evidence of persistence and the power of public records.

Teacher Certification Scores are not something every parent thinks about when they send their child off to school. It wasn’t until high school that I found out that teachers are regularly tested so they can teach. This information was provided when I overheard my English teacher complaining because she had to take the math portion of the test for the fifth time. Thankfully she passed the English portion of the test with flying colors.

Doig’s investigation into teacher’s scores was very elaborate, but was made easier by a computer program that allowed a classification system. Doig was able to categorize teachers throughout the state by name, race, district, school, social security number, and test scores. There were also indicators about the school grade, how many students were in gifted etc.

It was sad in a sense to see that a teacher could fail a test 65 times and still be allowed to teach. The teachers who failed more were put in poorer schools. How does that set children up to succeed if their teachers aren’t capable enough to pass a test?

The use of math helped greatly with the teacher’s scores but what about a database of 19 million. Add in some parameters of 30 days with a 30 percent increase, a computer to handle the load and you have “Flip that house fraud.”

The philosophy of “If it’s happening in one place; it’s probably happening in more places” led to a substantial wealth of information regarding housing fraud. In fact, it led to 55,000 incidents of house fraud, billions of dollars, and the realization that Florida is now considered the #1 state for housing fraud.

The process of compiling the information and relaying it to the masses took a year. The knowledge gained though was very pertinent to understanding locally why the housing market turned out the way it did.

My hostility towards math has been slightly diminished after Doig’s compelling stories of how math and a computer program can help to create a beneficial story for the readers. Public records provide the information needed to begin the story and sometimes math helps to finish it.