Do you ever wish for something you can’t have?

In the data world, we have a lot of unfulfilled wishes because the data we need – or at the granularity that we need it – often just aren’t available, at least not yet. So, to address our goal of providing users with the most helpful data, we regularly seek suggestions for our data “wish list” for kidsdata.org. We’ve already added a variety of indicators that users have suggested, such as data on depression, school connectedness, and family structure. Ideas for new data arise from comments on this blog, and from conversations we have with users around the state, from Shasta to San Diego.

Leave a comment telling us what data you’d like to see.

Posted by kidsdata.org

If you follow this blog, or received our recent advisory, you probably know we just updated physical fitness data on kidsdata.org. Related updates to weight data are coming very soon.

You can be among the first to learn about how you can use these updated data — and get a personal tour of kidsdata.org’s features — by joining our upcoming webinar, “How to Incorporate the Latest Fitness and Weight Data from Kidsdata.org into Your Work.” The webinar takes place on Thursday, June 16 at 11 a.m.

In this webinar, we will show you how to use kidsdata.org to find fitness and weight data by region, gender, grade, and racial/ethnic group. We will demonstrate how you can view these data as maps and tables and bar and trend graphs and then import what you built into a Powerpoint presentation or Word document. You also will learn how to embed graphs onto your website.

Can’t join this webinar? No problem — just contact us at 650-724-5778 or [email protected] and we’d be happy to schedule one just for your organization.

Register for the webinar>>

Posted by kidsdata.org

A new policy brief just released by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research has found that one-third of California teens don’t participate in P.E. classes at school. In fact, the percentage of children taking P.E. drops with age, the study found — from 95% at age 12 to only 23% at age 17.

How did this happen?

Budget cuts to physical education programs are one culprit, researchers say, and exemptions that allow high schoolers to skip 2 years of P.E. are another. The brief’s authors recommend increased funding for P.E. and maintenance of existing programs to combat this issue.

On a related note, data about physical fitness just were updated on kidsdata.org. The data show that, depending on the gender and grade, about 25% to 40% of California students meet the state’s standards. And, although students in all grades have made gains over the past decade, the percentage of students meeting all fitness standards has largely leveled off in recent years. See our blog post on these fitness results.

Posted by kidsdata.org

In case you missed it, we wanted to point out a map of physical fitness data from kidsdata.org that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News yesterday.

The map notes physical fitness scores in six Bay Area counties for 5th, 7th, and 9th graders. This is just one great example of the power of data — these numbers can be so compelling when viewed in map form. Thanks to the Mercury News for the mention, and for incorporating data into their reporting.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Check out other Mercury News maps that incorporate data from kidsdata.org, featuring data about child abuse, juvenile arrests, truancy, suicide, and college readiness.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Depending on the gender and grade, about 25% to 40% of California students meet all six of the state’s fitness standards. And while the percent of 5th, 7th, and 9th graders who met all of these fitness standards has been improving over the last decade, fitness scores in California largely leveled off between 2009 and 2010. View this slideshow to learn more>>

Posted by kidsdata.org