ProPublica

Journalism in the Public Interest

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.

Find a school

Plano West Senior High School

5601 W PARKER RD, PLANO, TEXAS, 75093 | Grades 11-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,950
125
6% 27
District 55K 3,828 14% 26
State 4.01M 269,017 14% 15
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

48%
21%

7%

Take at Least One AP Course

20%
32%

56%

AP Pass Rate

48%
100%

100%

Take Advanced Math

10%
1%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
14%

11%

Take Chemistry

26%
16%

15%

Take Physics

14%
39%

39%

Participate in sports

32%
0.0%

26%

Are

0%
0%

1% Am Indian
4%
21%

19% Asian
15%
11%

11% Black
50%
19%

8% Hispanic
29%
49%

61% White

Plano West Senior High School, part of the Plano ISD, is located in Plano, Texas. The school reports enrolling 1,950 students in grades 11 and 12, and it has 125 teachers on staff.

Plano West Senior High School is below both the state and district averages in terms of 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, while 7 percent of Plano West Senior High School students are eligible. At the district level, 21 percent 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.

Plano West Senior High School offers 27 AP courses, and 56 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams matches the district's, each of which is 100 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.

Plano West Senior High School has an enrollment rate of 39 percent for physics classes, and 15 percent of students take physics. The enrollment rate for the school's gifted and talented program is 11 percent.

Reach Charter, in Houston, Texas, is a higher-poverty school than Plano West Senior High School, with 56 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not offer AP classes.

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