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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

Mandalay Middle School

9651 NORTH PIERCE STREET, WESTMINSTER, COLO., 80021 | Grades 7-8

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers
This School
420
27
4%
District 79.5K 4,370 4%
State 669K 37,345 13%
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

35%
25%

27%
State Avg: 35% District Avg: 25%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
9%

11%
State Avg: 8% District Avg: 9%

Are

1%
1%

1% Am Indian
State Avg: 1% District Avg: 1%
4%
4%

14% Asian
State Avg: 4% District Avg: 4%
6%
2%

2% Black
State Avg: 6% District Avg: 2%
29%
20%

17% Hispanic
State Avg: 29% District Avg: 20%
60%
73%

68% White
State Avg: 60% District Avg: 73%

Mandalay Middle School, in Westminster, Colorado, is part of the Jefferson County School District No. R-1. The school reports enrolling 420 students in grades seven and eight, and it has 27 teachers on staff.

Mandalay Middle School is below the state average but above the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 35 percent of students in Colorado are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 27 percent of Mandalay Middle School students are eligible. At the district level, 25 percent of students are eligible.

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.

Mandalay Middle School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 11 percent.

Wheat Ridge Middle School, in Wheat Ridge, Colo., is a higher-poverty school than Mandalay Middle School, with 86 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 4 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