ProPublica

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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.

Find a school

Media Arts & Communications Academy

1330 NE COWLS, MCMINNVILLE, ORE., 97128 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
250
16
57% 2
District 6,460 286 13% 10
State 426K 20,551 7% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Take at Least One AP Course

16%
14%

16%

Take Advanced Math

13%
14%

10%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

9%
6%

4%

Take Chemistry

12%
9%

14%

Take Physics

6%
3%

0%

Are

2%
1%

0% Am Indian
5%
2%

2% Asian
3%
1%

0% Black
20%
30%

26% Hispanic
66%
66%

72% White

Media Arts & Communications Academy, in Mcminnville, Oregon, is part of the McMinnville School District 40. The school reports enrolling 250 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 16 teachers on staff.

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.

Media Arts & Communications Academy offers two AP courses, and 16 percent of students participate in those classes.

Media Arts & Communications Academy has an enrollment rate of 10 percent for advanced math classes, and 14 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for the school's gifted and talented program is 0 percent.

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