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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

Laurel Middle School

1600 GRANDVIEW DRIVE, LAUREL, MISS., 39440 | Grades 6-8

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
655
46
28%
District 3,370 242 12%
State 338K 22,455 13%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

10%
10%

16%
State Avg: 10% District Avg: 10%

Are

0%
0%

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

0% Asian
State Avg: 1% District Avg: 0%
48%
91%

90% Black
State Avg: 48% District Avg: 91%
3%
5%

4% Hispanic
State Avg: 3% District Avg: 5%
48%
4%

5% White
State Avg: 48% District Avg: 4%

Laurel Middle School, part of the Laurel School District, is located in Laurel, Mississippi. The school reports enrolling 655 students in grades six through eight, and it has 46 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.

Laurel Middle School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 16 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