ProPublica

Journalism in the Public Interest

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.

Find a school

Flower Hill Elementary

18425 FLOWER HILL WAY, GAITHERSBURG, MD., 20879 | Grades PreK-5

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
475
40
12%
District 141K 10,180 12%
State 826K 56,262 11%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

34%
27%

50%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

25%
54%

12%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
6%
16%

18% Asian
37%
23%

33% Black
10%
23%

39% Hispanic
45%
38%

11% White

Flower Hill Elementary, part of the Montgomery County Public Schools district, is located in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The school reports an enrollment number of 475 students in grades pre-kindergarten through five, and it has 40 teachers on staff.

Flower Hill Elementary is above both the state and district averages in terms of the percentage of its students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 34 percent of students in Maryland are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, whereas 50 percent of Flower Hill Elementary students are eligible. At the district level, 27 percent of students 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.

Flower Hill Elementary's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 12 percent.

Pointers Run Elementary, in Clarksville, Md., is a lower-poverty school than Flower Hill Elementary, with 1 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 16 percent of students in its 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