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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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Warren Central High School

1000 HIGHWAY 27, VICKSBURG, MISS., 39180 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,125
86
11% 20
District 8,845 577 11% 14
State 338K 22,455 13% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

64%
71%

53%

Take at Least One AP Course

10%
19%

22%

AP Pass Rate

31%
50%

50%

Take Advanced Math

11%
11%

15%

Take Chemistry

13%
8%

8%

Take Physics

2%
1%

1%

Participate in sports

30%
0.0%

35%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
1%

1% Asian
48%
61%

49% Black
3%
2%

1% Hispanic
48%
36%

48% White

Warren Central High School, part of the Vicksburg Warren School District, is located in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,125 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 86 teachers on staff.

Warren Central High School is below 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, 64 percent of students in Mississippi are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 53 percent of Warren Central High School students are eligible. At the district level, 71 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.

Warren Central High School offers 20 AP courses, and 22 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams matches the district's, each of which is 50 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.

Warren Central High School has an enrollment rate of 15 percent for advanced math classes, and 8 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 1 percent.

Canton Elementary School, in Canton, Miss., is a higher-poverty school than Warren Central High School, with 99 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not offer AP classes.

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