According to Stopbullying.gov (2021), twenty percent of students ages 12-18 have experienced bullying nationwide. I feel as if the term “bullying” used to be referred to as picking on, making fun of, or teasing. However, with the power of social media, the term has evolved and can cause heartache, frustration, and various emotions for many students and their families.

My son attends high school in a nearby community and has continued his education in the same school district since preschool. By talking to other parents and information shared by teachers, I found that many children in the community have had issues with bullying on many levels over the years, including my son. For our theoretical data analysis project, I have decided to gather data on the impact of bullying within school systems and present the information to our government representative to promote social change.

Repercussions of bullying are usually spelled out and precise in the student handbook and typically address uncertainty. Nonetheless, are appropriate conduct and follow-through actions perused by school administrators to comply with these repercussions? I have found that living in a small town, this may not always be the case. Lack of resources and not wanting to spotlight negativity within the community may sometimes override policy depending on the nature of the issue. Furthermore, ensuring a fair investigation is conducted into all allegations to establish the integrity of the situation is a must. The investigation will validate claims and provide a better representation of statistics on the presenting issue to be dealt with accordingly.

I believe communication is vital to ensure our statistics are relatable to a diverse group of individuals. Of course, presenting data (as in the number of bullying cases in the past school year) in easy-to-read charts or drawings may be helpful. But by offering open forums and discussions and encouraging families of victims to share their stories and outcomes, to me, may offer the most benefit. This will spark conversation and questions and may encourage others to get involved.

While collecting data for this project may sound as easy as sending out a survey, there are things to be cautious of when gathering the data. While the earlier statistic from Stopbullying.gov mentions children 12-18, where do you draw the line? Households may contain children from different schooling levels, ages, and even school district attendance since we are a school of choice. How could we ensure the data is accurate for the group we are polling for? Furthermore, as Chalabi (2017) mentions, it is easy to understand why people get frustrated with global averages when they don’t match up with their personal experiences. How do we know if the individuals sharing information are telling the truth? Did their child actually have an unfortunate incident with bullying? Did they report the issue? Or do they want to be part of the movement and say they did to add to the cause?

Allocation of time and money should be considered for the collection of data to shed light on bullying, not only nationwide but also within everyday communities. This information could encourage the communities to come together and support one another and enforce a no-tolerance policy for such behavior. Support groups for families and students, school presentations for anti-bullying, and most of all educate and promote students on how to report bullying behaviors are positive things that may result in collecting the data.

References

Stopbullying.gov (2021). Facts About Bullying. https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/facts

Chalabi, M. (2017, February). 3 ways to spot a bad statistic [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/mona_chalabi_3_ways_to_spot_a_bad_statistic

Response 2: Respond to at least one other classmate using the following:

• Chalabi emphasizes data collection so trends can be tracked over time and comparisons can be made as needed.
• Select one of your classmates’ data collection projects and explain how this data could be used in a specific application.
• What is one organization or group that would be interested in the results of this data collection project? How might they use the results?

The second response will be to Latoya:

Many Veterans are eligible for cost free healthcare. Of course based on qualifying factors, yet they are afforded the opportunity of either no cost or low cost healthcare. Over 9 million veterans are enrolled in the VA healthcare program. Even though they are provided this service the quality and availability of the VA healthcare has longed been questioned throughout the years. The access to these services have often times been difficult for many veterans and others have been affected by the quality of the care that they do receive. Congress did put the Veterans choice program in place. This program was created to help veterans have access to non VA physicians, since many complained about having to travel great distance to receive care and once there the care was questionable. Having to travel great distance can cause a strain not only on the veterans but their family and caregivers. I personally have a family member that travels over 2 hours for care. The quality of care of another family member contributed to their death. Many stories have been reported that provided data on this subpar care received through the VA health system. Since this was such an issue many years ago a research report was conducted by the Evidence based synthesis program. This report was used to compare quality care in the VA and Non VA health care settings. Interesting enough the report made the following disclaimer, “ This report does not necessarily represent the views of the Department of VA or the US Government”(HRSD). One has to consider if the findings and data were biased especially since this was funded by the department of Veterans Affairs. So could the report be rigged like Chalabi mentioned in our TED TALK?

Collecting data on the quality of care received at VA hospitals through direct experiences would be great but it could be biased as well. There could be different interpretations when talking with family members as well since emotions are involved. Again it may be difficult to collect actual data from the VA hospitals as they may not tell the whole story. “The Dayton Daily news has reported that the VA has admitted to 23 veterans deaths due to delayed care, but the newspaper said records obtained through ACT put the actual figure at about 1,000 between 2001 and 2013”(Melanie Batley). The quality and access for many veterans continues to be an issue that needs to be looked into. However the research in finding the real numbers and issues need to be examined. In order to capture the actual picture one would need to put money and time into looking into malpractice claims, pull the information on claims paid because of death caused by either delay in care or quality of care. Look into how many veterans have been notified of their rights to file Tort claims because of a delay in treatment.

Obtaining the correct data is necessary especially to those that who have served our country. If special hospitals are put in place for our veterans it is essential that we provide easy access to healthcare as well as quality healthcare. As our reading this week states “Mathematics is more than recognizing number patterns, it is about the patterns that arise in the world around us”(R.Blizter 2019). We have to find out the pattern to this ongoing and unfortunate situation and figure out a permanent solution. The lives of our veterans are at stake.

Comparison of Quality of Care in VA and Non-VA Settings (2010): www.hsrd.research.va.gov

Chalabi M. (2017). 3 Ways to spot a bad statistic, YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwwanld4T1w

Melanie Batley- Holder: No plans to Investigate Deaths at VA Hosptial (2014)

www.newsmax.com

Blitzter, R (2019) Thinking Mathmatically (7^th ed) Pearson- Chapter 12, “Statistics”