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

Garrett Heights Elementary

2800 AILSA AVE, BALTIMORE, MD., 21214 | Grades PreK-9

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
460
35
12% N/A
District 74K 4,940 21% 3
State 826K 56,262 11% 15
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

34%
74%

57%

Take Advanced Math

17%
8%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

25%
5%

0%

Take Chemistry

20%
22%

0%

Take Physics

12%
17%

0%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
6%
1%

2% Asian
37%
88%

90% Black
10%
3%

2% Hispanic
45%
8%

7% White

Garrett Heights Elementary, in Baltimore, Maryland, is part of the Baltimore City Public Schools district. The school reports enrolling 460 students in grades pre-kindergarten through nine, and it has 35 teachers on staff.

Garrett Heights Elementary is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 34 percent of students in Maryland are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 57 percent of Garrett Heights Elementary students do. At the district level, 74 percent of students 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.

Margaret Brent Elementary, also in Baltimore, Md., is a higher-poverty school than Garrett Heights Elementary, with 98 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.

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