How's Your School?

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.  

In some counties, there seems to be a relationship between gifted and talented programs and poverty. The larger the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, the lower the percentage of students in elementary school gifted programs.

Tucker High School has 53 percent of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch, with 25 percent taking at least one AP course and 32 percent taking Advanced Math, according to the report.

Pro Publica allows you to compare states, districts within states and schools within districts. Take a look.

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