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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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Bloom Trail High School

22331 COTTAGE GROVE, CHICAGO HEIGHTS, ILL., 60411 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,640
92
5% 5
District 3,310 191 5% 5
State 1.36M 84,195 14% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

44%
69%

67%

Take at Least One AP Course

19%
8%

11%

AP Pass Rate

67%
29%

40%

Take Advanced Math

13%
5%

5%

Take Chemistry

21%
16%

14%

Take Physics

12%
7%

4%

Participate in sports

49%
0.0%

19%

Are

0%
0%

1% Am Indian
5%
0%

0% Asian
24%
56%

58% Black
27%
22%

10% Hispanic
43%
16%

24% White

Bloom Trail High School, in Chicago Heights, Illinois, is part of the Bloom Township High School District 206. The school reports enrolling 1,640 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 92 teachers on staff.

Bloom Trail High School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 44 percent of students in Illinois qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 67 percent of Bloom Trail High School students do. At the district level, 69 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.

Bloom Trail High School offers five AP courses, and 11 percent of students participate in those classes.

For AP tests, the school's pass rate is above the district average, with 40 percent of students passing some or all AP tests. Compare this to the district rate of 29 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.

Bloom Trail High School has an enrollment rate of 5 percent for advanced math classes, and 14 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 4 percent.

Lake Park High School, a lower-poverty school than Bloom Trail High School, does not have any students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 24 percent of its students in AP classes. It is located in Roselle, Ill.

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