Schools
How's Your School Doing?
Pro Publica analyzes federal data to offer a snapshot of public education opportunities. See data from Gwinnett County, Annistown Elementary, Shiloh Middle and Brookwood High within this article.
How good a job does the State of Georgia do in giving students equal access in public education? Access to advanced placement courses, advanced math courses and gifted programs?
The team at Pro Publica, decided to find out, using information collected by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights. Pro Publica is a non-profit, independent news organization that does “investigative journalism in the public interest,” according to their website.
Released last week, this particular project finds that in many states, there’s a negative correlation between high-poverty public schools and the percentage of students enrolled in more rigorous courses. Many in education call the disparity between richer and poorer districts and access to higher level courses the "opportunity gap," according to Pro Publica.
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In Gwinnett County's case, according to Pro Publica, nearly half of alll students (46 percent) qualify for free and reduced price lunches. That's lower, however, than the state average of 52 percent. About 14 percent of Gwinnett students are in gifted and talented programs, and that's beats the state average of 11 percent.
Within some schools, you can also see a relation between a high percentage of students in susbsidized meal programs and a lower percentage of students in gifted programs. At , for example, there are approximately 68 percent of students in the subsidized meal program, with just 8 percent in gifted program. At , 57 percent of students qualified for subsidized meals, and 13 percent were in gifted and talented programs.
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At the high school level, had the lowest percentage of students getting free or reduced price meals at 16 percent. Students in AP courses or advanced math classes was 32 percent and 27 percent, respectively. The number of students in those advanced classes was a greater percentage than or high schools, which also had higher poverty indicators, according to Pro Publica.
Pro Publica allows you to compare states, districts within states and schools within districts. Take a look.
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