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Is Your State Providing Equal Access to Education?

ProPublica analyzed federal education data from the 2009-2010 school year to examine whether states provide high-poverty schools equal access to advanced courses and special programs that researchers say will help them later in life. This is the first nationwide picture of exactly which courses are being taken at which schools and districts across the country. More than three-quarters of all public school children are represented. Read our story and our methodology.

Find a school

Howard A Yeager Elementary School

1811 MORROW AVE, NORTH CHICAGO, ILL., 60064 | Grades PreK-K

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
260
12
17%
District 4,020 242 12%
State 1.36M 84,195 14%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

44%
74%

99%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
5%
1%

0% Asian
24%
48%

46% Black
27%
45%

44% Hispanic
43%
6%

10% White

Howard A Yeager Elementary School, in North Chicago, Illinois, is part of the North Chicago School District 187. The school reports enrolling 260 students in pre-kindergarten, and it has 12 teachers on staff.

Howard A Yeager Elementary School is above both the state and district averages for the percentage of students eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch. On average, 44 percent of students in Illinois qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, while 99 percent of students at Howard A Yeager Elementary School do. At the district level, 74 percent of students qualify.

ProPublica's analysis found that all too often, states and schools provide poor students fewer educational programs like Advanced Placement, gifted and talented programs, and advanced math and science classes. Studies have linked participation in these programs with better outcomes later in life. Our analysis uses free and reduced-price lunch to estimate poverty at schools. We based our findings on the most comprehensive data set of access to advanced classes and special programs in U.S. public schools — known as the Civil Rights Data Set— released by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

The school hasn't reported or may not have a gifted and talented program.

Verda Dierzen Early Learning Center, in Woodstock, Ill., is a lower-poverty school than Howard A Yeager Elementary School, with 7 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not have a gifted and talented program.

These data points were reported by schools and districts to the Office for Civil Rights. For more information about the data, see our full methodology.

— Generated by Narrative Science