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.

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Beechwood Elementary School

999 HIGHWAY 27 S, VICKSBURG, MISS., 39180 | Grades PreK-6

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
575
43
5%
District 8,845 577 11%
State 338K 22,455 13%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

64%
71%

65%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

10%
13%

14%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
1%

1% Asian
48%
61%

47% Black
3%
2%

1% Hispanic
48%
36%

52% White

Beechwood Elementary School, part of the Vicksburg Warren School District, is located in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The school reports enrolling 575 students in grades pre-kindergarten through six, and it has 43 teachers on staff.

Beechwood Elementary School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 64 percent of students in Mississippi qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 65 percent of Beechwood Elementary School students do. At the district level, 71 percent of students qualify.

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.

Beechwood Elementary School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 14 percent.

Threadgill Elementary School, in Greenwood, Miss., is a higher-poverty school than Beechwood Elementary School, with 99 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 1 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