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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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Brandywine High School

1400 FOULK ROAD, WILMINGTON, DEL., 19803 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,130
78
6% 18
District 10.2K 716 6% 21
State 107K 7,041 10% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

40%
34%

31%

Take at Least One AP Course

19%
19%

17%

AP Pass Rate

39%
53%

60%

Take Advanced Math

13%
19%

19%

Take Chemistry

18%
24%

22%

Take Physics

7%
12%

9%

Participate in sports

48%
0.0%

43%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
3%
5%

3% Asian
33%
38%

42% Black
12%
4%

3% Hispanic
51%
52%

52% White

Brandywine High School, part of the Brandywine School District, is located in Wilmington, Delaware. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,130 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 78 teachers on staff.

Brandywine 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, 40 percent of students in Delaware are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 31 percent of Brandywine High School students are eligible. At the district level, 34 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.

Brandywine High School offers 18 AP courses, and 17 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 60 percent is higher than the district average of 53 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.

Brandywine High School has an enrollment rate of 19 percent for advanced math classes, and 22 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 9 percent.

Thomas McKean High School, also in Wilmington, Del., is a higher-poverty school than Brandywine High School, with 53 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 18 AP courses, and 16 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