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Is Your State Providing Equal Access to Education?

This database was last updated in January 2013 and should only be used as a historical snapshot of data from the 2009-10 school year. For more recent data on public and charter schools, check out Miseducation.

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.

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Grace King High School

4301 GRACE KING PLACE, METAIRIE, LA., 70002 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,055
78
5% 31
District 39.5K 3,162 10% 31
State 606K 42,651 11% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

63%
75%

42%

Take at Least One AP Course

7%
7%

9%

AP Pass Rate

32%
7%

57%

Take Advanced Math

10%
14%

18%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

4%
7%

12%

Take Chemistry

18%
20%

23%

Take Physics

6%
8%

10%

Participate in sports

32%
0.0%

9%

Are

1%
1%

0% Am Indian
1%
5%

11% Asian
43%
48%

22% Black
3%
14%

23% Hispanic
51%
32%

43% White

Grace King High School, part of the Jefferson Parish School Board district, is located in Metairie, Louisiana. The school reports enrolling 1,055 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 78 teachers on staff.

Grace King High School is below both the state and district averages for the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. On average, 63 percent of students in Louisiana qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, whereas 42 percent of students at Grace King High School are eligible. At the district level, 75 percent are eligible.

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.

Grace King High School offers 31 AP courses, and 9 percent of students participate in those classes.

For AP tests, the school's pass rate is above the district average, with 57 percent of students passing some or all AP tests. Compare this to the district rate of 7 percent.

A school's AP pass rate is determined by the number of students who both sat for AP exams and passed some or all of those exams.

Grace King High School has an enrollment rate of 18 percent for math classes, and 23 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 10 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 12 percent.

Varnado High School, in Varnado, La., is a higher-poverty school than Grace King High School, with 97 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers four AP courses, and 5 percent of students are enrolled in those courses.

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