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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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South Panola High School

601 TIGER DRIVE, BATESVILLE, MISS., 38606 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,220
87
7% 6
District 4,605 304 10% 6
State 338K 22,455 13% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

64%
75%

66%

Take at Least One AP Course

10%
9%

9%

AP Pass Rate

31%
100%

100%

Take Advanced Math

11%
5%

5%

Take Chemistry

13%
16%

16%

Take Physics

2%
1%

1%

Participate in sports

30%
0.0%

11%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
0%

0% Asian
48%
55%

58% Black
3%
1%

2% Hispanic
48%
43%

40% White

South Panola High School, part of the South Panola School District, is located in Batesville, Mississippi. The school reports enrolling 1,220 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 87 teachers on staff.

South Panola High School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 64 percent of students in Mississippi are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 66 percent of South Panola High School students do. At the district level, 75 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.

South Panola High School offers six AP courses, and 9 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams matches the district's, each of which is 100 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.

South Panola High School enrolls 5 percent of students in advanced math classes, and 16 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 1 percent.

Desoto Central High School, in Southaven, Mississippi, is a lower-poverty school than South Panola High School, with 16 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers eight AP courses, and 7 percent of students are enrolled in those classs.

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