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The Opportunity Gap

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.

From http://projects.propublica.org/schools. © Copyright 2011 Pro Publica Inc.

Find a school

Denham Springs Elementary School

306 NORTH RANGE AVENUE, DENHAM SPRINGS, LA., 70726 | Grades PreK-5

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
545
32
9%
District 24.3K 1,450 8%
State 606K 42,651 11%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

63%
51%

63%
State Avg: 63% District Avg: 51%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

4%
3%

0%
State Avg: 4% District Avg: 3%

Are

1%
0%

0% Am Indian
State Avg: 1% District Avg: 0%
1%
0%

2% Asian
State Avg: 1% District Avg: 0%
43%
6%

12% Black
State Avg: 43% District Avg: 6%
3%
2%

6% Hispanic
State Avg: 3% District Avg: 2%
51%
90%

81% White
State Avg: 51% District Avg: 90%

Denham Springs Elementary School, in Denham Springs, Louisiana, is part of the Livingston Parish School Board district. The school reports enrolling 545 students in grades pre-kindergarten through five, and it has 32 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.

Legacy Elementary School is a lower-poverty school than Denham Springs Elementary School, with 12 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 2 percent of students in its gifted and talented program. The school is located in Bossier City, La.

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