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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.

Find a school

Colony High

3850 E. RIVERSIDE DR., ONTARIO, CALIF., 91761 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
2,255
88
6% 12
District 24K 922 8% 14
State 5.34M 237,404 6% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

53%
35%

40%

Take at Least One AP Course

19%
14%

11%

AP Pass Rate

59%
89%

73%

Take Advanced Math

12%
8%

6%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

10%
20%

24%

Take Chemistry

16%
12%

10%

Take Physics

7%
4%

2%

Participate in sports

32%
0.0%

36%

Are

1%
0%

0% Am Indian
12%
7%

6% Asian
7%
10%

16% Black
52%
60%

63% Hispanic
26%
21%

15% White

Colony High, part of the Chaffey Joint Union High School district, is located in Ontario, California. The school reports enrolling 2,255 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 88 teachers on staff.

Colony High is below the state average but above the district average for the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 53 percent of students in California qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 40 percent of Colony High students qualify. At the district level, 35 percent of students qualify.

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.

Colony High offers 12 AP courses, and 11 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams is 73 percent. This is lower than the district average of 89 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.

Colony High has an enrollment rate of 6 percent for math classes, and 10 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 2 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 24 percent.

Sequoia High School, in Merced, Calif., is a higher-poverty school than Colony High, with 100 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