[Data-modeling] Changes to the schema for primary and secondaryschools

[Jeff Prucher]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com 
> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of 
> Benjamin Goldenberg
> Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 5:29 PM
> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Changes to the schema for 
> primary and secondaryschools
> 
> On Sep 16, 2008, at 5:18 PM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
> 
> > Currently, the lowest and highest grade levels taught for schools 
> > (that is, primary and secondary schools) is stored as a 
> text string. 
> > This makes it extremely difficult to compare schools, since 
> the data 
> > varies widely (e.g.
> > "1" and "first" are both used). There's been a request to normalize 
> > this, and I've put up a proposal in a personal domain on 
> sandbox. My 
> > idea is that there should be a new type (Grade Level) for 
> this value. 
> > Because these can vary greatly (both in terms of 
> nomenclature and how 
> > they function in the school system), I've also included a 
> non-unique, 
> > disambiguating property for the locations in which this 
> grade is used.
> >
> > The Grade Level type is here:
> > http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/user/jeff/education/grade_level
> 
> I think that the Grade Level type should also have a "usual 
> age" time range property. For instance, sixth grade students 
> are usually 11 to
> 12 years old. Obviously there are exceptions but sixth grade 
> curricula are designed for 11 to 12 year olds.

That's a good idea, and would provide a way to distinguish between grades in
different locations with similar names, but different age groups.  I'll add
that to the model.

Jeff