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

Trafalgar Elementary School

1850 SW 20TH AVE, CAPE CORAL, FLA., 33991 | Grades K-5

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
820
53
15%
District 69.4K 4,388 21%
State 2.43M 163,474 19%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

50%
57%

45%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

6%
7%

9%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
3%
1%

2% Asian
24%
16%

4% Black
27%
32%

27% Hispanic
46%
51%

68% White

Trafalgar Elementary School, part of the Lee district, is located in Cape Coral, Florida. The school reports an enrollment number of 820 students in grades kindergarten through five, and it has 53 teachers on staff.

Trafalgar Elementary 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, 50 percent of students in Florida qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, whereas 45 percent of students at Trafalgar Elementary School are eligible. At the district level, 57 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.

Trafalgar Elementary School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 9 percent.

South Grade Elementary School, in Lake Worth, Fla., is a higher-poverty school than Trafalgar Elementary School, with 97 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not have a 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