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

Lowery Freshman Center

120 N JUPITER RD, ALLEN, TEXAS, 75002 | Grades 9

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,335
91
5% N/A
District 18.2K 1,200 8% 20
State 4.01M 269,017 14% 15
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

48%
14%

14%

Take Advanced Math

10%
0%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
12%

17%

Take Chemistry

26%
39%

0%

Take Physics

14%
24%

0%

Are

0%
1%

1% Am Indian
4%
13%

9% Asian
15%
11%

12% Black
50%
13%

13% Hispanic
29%
62%

65% White

Lowery Freshman Center, part of the Allen ISD, is located in Allen, Texas. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,335 students, and it has 91 teachers on staff.

Lowery Freshman Center is below the state average and in line with the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 48 percent of students in Texas qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 14 percent of Lowery Freshman Center students do. At the district level, 14 percent 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.

Lowery Freshman Center hasn't reported or may not offer AP courses.

Lowery Freshman Center's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 17 percent.

MacArthur Ninth Grade School, in Houston, Texas, is a higher-poverty school than Lowery Freshman Center, with 87 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not offer AP classes.

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