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

Guilford Middle School

401 COLLEGE RD, GREENSBORO, N.C., 27410 | Grades 6-8

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
730
47
15%
District 71.8K 4,744 14%
State 1.36M 88,261 10%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

34%
47%

51%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

12%
19%

23%

Are

2%
4%

14% Am Indian
3%
5%

5% Asian
28%
41%

43% Black
11%
2%

0% Hispanic
55%
43%

30% White

Guilford Middle School, part of the Guilford County Schools district, is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. The school reports enrolling 730 students in grades six through eight, and it has 47 teachers on staff.

Guilford Middle School is above both the state and district averages for the percentage of students eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch. On average, 34 percent of students in North Carolina qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, while 51 percent of students at Guilford Middle School do. At the district level, 47 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.

Guilford Middle School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 23 percent.

Nash Central Middle School, a lower-poverty school than Guilford Middle School, does not have any students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 9 percent of students in its gifted and talented program. The school is located in Nashville, N.C.

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