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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A Leal Jr Middle School

743 W SOUTHCROSS BLVD, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, 78211 | Grades 6-8

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
745
56
20%
District 14.2K 963 20%
State 4.01M 269,017 14%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

48%
5%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
6%

7%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
4%
0%

0% Asian
15%
0%

0% Black
50%
96%

98% Hispanic
29%
3%

2% White

A Leal Jr Middle School, part of the Harlandale ISD, is located in San Antonio, Texas. The school reports enrolling 745 students in grades six through eight, and it has 56 teachers on staff.

There are no students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch at A Leal Jr Middle School. Compare this with the free or reduced-price lunch rates for the state and district, where 48 percent of students in Texas qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and 5 percent of district 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.

A Leal Jr Middle School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 7 percent.

Elmore Middle School, in Houston, Texas, is a higher-poverty school than A Leal Jr Middle School, with 99 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 6 percent of students in its 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