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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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Pasadena Memorial High School

4410 CRENSHAW, PASADENA, TEXAS, 77504 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
2,765
144
25% 15
District 51.5K 3,070 20% 14
State 4.01M 269,017 14% 15
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

48%
75%

48%

Take at Least One AP Course

20%
11%

9%

AP Pass Rate

48%
33%

53%

Take Advanced Math

10%
8%

9%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
5%

8%

Take Chemistry

26%
33%

28%

Take Physics

14%
18%

23%

Participate in sports

32%
0.0%

20%

Are

0%
0%

1% Am Indian
4%
3%

4% Asian
15%
78%

63% Black
50%
7%

4% Hispanic
29%
11%

28% White

Pasadena Memorial High School, part of the Pasadena ISD, is located in Pasadena, Texas. The school reports enrolling 2,765 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 144 teachers on staff.

Pasadena Memorial High School is on par with the state average but below district average for the percentage of its students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 48 percent of students in Texas are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs and 48 percent of Pasadena Memorial High School students are eligible. At the district level, 75 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.

Pasadena Memorial High School offers 15 AP courses, and 9 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 53 percent is higher than the district average of 33 percent.

A school's AP pass rate is determined by the number of students who both sat for AP exams and passed some or all of those exams.

Pasadena Memorial High School has an enrollment rate of 9 percent for math classes, and 28 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 23 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 8 percent.

North Forest High School, in Houston, Texas, is a higher-poverty school than Pasadena Memorial High School, with 100 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 13 AP courses, and 14 percent of students are enrolled in those courses.

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