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

Jerome High School

104 N TIGER DR, JEROME, IDAHO, 83338 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
935
60
8% 2
District 3,485 194 10% 2
State 190K 9,491 10% 8
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

39%
60%

42%

Take at Least One AP Course

14%
11%

11%

AP Pass Rate

54%
100%

100%

Take Advanced Math

12%
10%

10%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

5%
2%

2%

Take Chemistry

11%
8%

8%

Take Physics

3%
4%

4%

Participate in sports

42%
0.0%

61%

Are

1%
1%

1% Am Indian
2%
0%

0% Asian
1%
0%

1% Black
15%
41%

35% Hispanic
79%
57%

63% White

Jerome High School, part of the Jerome Joint District, is located in Jerome, Idaho. The school reports an enrollment number of 935 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 60 teachers on staff.

Jerome High School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 39 percent of students in Idaho are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 42 percent of Jerome High School students do. At the district level, 60 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.

Jerome High School offers two AP courses, and 11 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.

Jerome 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 4 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 2 percent.

Vallivue Academy, in Caldwell, Idaho, is a higher-poverty school than Jerome High School, with 82 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