Free/Reduced Lunch Correlations

[UPDATE]
I had a request to add spending per student...so I did
What we see is that the less you spend, the better the scores in 3rd grade reading and math seem to be. Also spending seems to be directly tied to free/reduced price lunch...

FYI...I'd like to point out that that just because two things are correlated does not mean that one causes the other...
[/UPDATE]

[UPDATE2]
Added Berryhill, Glenpool, and Sand Springs, changed highlight colors, and made the numbers into percents.  70-79 percent is yellow, 80-89 percent is orange, 90-99 percent is red.
[/UPDATE2]


Using data from my last post and adding three more local school districts(Bixby, Owasso, and BA) I created a Google spreadsheet to show how the data is or isn't correlated. (Interesting correlations are highlighted)
For a stronger case I would need a lot more districts represented, so anything less than 90% correlation is sort of questionable.

Regardless, what we see is that NOT being qualified for the school lunch program is highly correlated with 3rd grade math and reading, and later with SAT scores.

It doesn't look like volunteer hours per student counts for much...which is really surprising. I'm also blown away by how many hours TPS has....I would have assumed that their hours per student would be really low.


We see that 3rd grade math achievement is highly correlated with 3rd grade reading.

We see that (of course) ACT scores are correlated with NOT having to take remedial college courses.

It seems that the reduced price/free school lunch is a big predictor of academic failure. Question is why? Is it because it’s a proxy measure of the wealth and stability of the home?

(scroll to the right to see highlights and correlations)

The following columns have been abrevated in the spread sheet

• Students Eligible for Free/Reduced Lunch
• Patrons' Volunteer Hours per Student
• 1st-3rd Graders Receiving Reading Remediation
• Third grade Math (% satisfactory or above)
• Third grade reading (% satisfactory or above)
• Average GPA of HS Seniors (2009 Seniors)
• Average ACT Score (Class of 2009) 
• Oklahoma College Freshmen taking at least one remedial course
  in Math, English, Science, or Reading ('06~'08)
• Spending per Student (based on Average Daily Enrollment)