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 Roswell's case, the relationship between gifted and talented programs can correlate to the area's poverty level; meaning the larger the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, the lower the percentage of students in elementary school gifted programs. 

For example, , off Warsaw Road, has 83 percent of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch, while only 3 percent are in the gifted and talented program. Whereas  has 6 percent of its students qualifying for free and reduced lunch and 26 percent in a gifted and talented program, according to the report.

But that's not always the case, as shown in the report's findings for where 26 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch and 25 percent are in the gifted and talented program.

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