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

Baldwin County High School

1 TIGER DR, BAY MINETTE, ALA., 36507 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,180
64
2% 5
District 27.8K 1,647 1% 6
State 611K 39,097 9% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

50%
37%

40%

Take at Least One AP Course

12%
10%

6%

AP Pass Rate

42%
41%

20%

Take Advanced Math

15%
14%

10%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

9%
19%

17%

Take Chemistry

14%
13%

8%

Take Physics

3%
4%

2%

Participate in sports

31%
0.0%

58%

Are

1%
1%

1% Am Indian
1%
1%

0% Asian
34%
14%

31% Black
4%
5%

1% Hispanic
59%
78%

66% White

Baldwin County High School, part of the Baldwin County district, is located in Bay Minette, Alabama. The school reports enrolling 1,180 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 64 teachers on staff.

Baldwin County High School is below the state average but above the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 50 percent of students in Alabama are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 40 percent of Baldwin County High School students are eligible. At the district level, 37 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.

Baldwin County High School offers five AP courses, and 6 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams is 20 percent. This is lower than the district average of 41 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.

Baldwin County High School has an enrollment rate of 10 percent for math classes, and 8 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 17 percent.

Southside High School, in Selma, Ala., is a higher-poverty school than Baldwin County High School, with 94 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