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

Harmony Middle School

10101 W 141ST STREET, OVERLAND PARK, KAN., 66221 | Grades 6-8

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
595
39
5%
District 22.5K 1,367 7%
State 279K 19,236 10%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

45%
5%

3%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

4%
7%

13%

Are

1%
0%

0% Am Indian
4%
9%

12% Asian
12%
3%

2% Black
20%
4%

3% Hispanic
60%
81%

80% White

Harmony Middle School, part of the Blue Valley district, is located in Overland Park, Kansas. The school reports enrolling 595 students in grades six through eight, and it has 39 teachers on staff.

Harmony Middle 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, 45 percent of students in Kansas are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 3 percent of Harmony Middle School students are eligible. At the district level, 5 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.

Harmony Middle School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 13 percent.

Central Middle School, in Kansas City, Kan., is a higher-poverty school than Harmony Middle School, with 94 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 2 percent of students in the 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