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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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Brookwood High School

1255 DOGWOOD ROAD, SNELLVILLE, GA., 30078 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
3,430
189
4% N/A
District 158K 10,514 4% 14
State 1.47M 103,585 8% 10
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

52%
46%

16%

Take at Least One AP Course

16%
27%

32%

AP Pass Rate

52%
58%

81%

Take Advanced Math

18%
19%

27%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

11%
14%

26%

Take Chemistry

17%
10%

13%

Take Physics

8%
16%

17%

Participate in sports

30%
0.0%

38%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
3%
10%

13% Asian
37%
27%

16% Black
12%
25%

10% Hispanic
45%
33%

55% White

Brookwood High School, part of the Gwinnett County Public Schools district, is located in Snellville, Georgia. The school reports an enrollment number of 3,430 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 189 teachers on staff.

Brookwood 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, 52 percent of students in Georgia are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 16 percent of Brookwood High School students are eligible. At the district level, 46 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.

Brookwood High School enrolls 32 percent of its students in AP classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 81 percent is higher than the district average of 58 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.

Brookwood High School has an enrollment rate of 27 percent for math classes, and 13 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 17 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 26 percent.

School Of Technology At Carver, in Atlanta, Ga., is a higher-poverty school than Brookwood High School, with 89 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