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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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Lincoln Way Central High School

1801 E LINCOLN HWY, NEW LENOX, ILL., 60451 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,365
138
100% 22
District 4,995 459 100% 22
State 1.36M 84,195 14% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

44%
5%

5%

Take at Least One AP Course

19%
51%

54%

AP Pass Rate

67%
71%

75%

Take Advanced Math

13%
7%

10%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

13%
54%

51%

Take Chemistry

21%
29%

30%

Take Physics

12%
24%

21%

Participate in sports

49%
0.0%

71%

Are

0%
1%

1% Am Indian
5%
3%

1% Asian
24%
3%

1% Black
27%
5%

5% Hispanic
43%
90%

92% White

Lincoln-Way Central High School, part of the Lincoln Way CHSD 210, is located in New Lenox, Illinois. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,365 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 138 teachers on staff.

Lincoln-Way Central High School is below the state average and on par with the district average for the percentage of its students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 44 percent of students in Illinois are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 5 percent of Lincoln-Way Central High School students are eligible. At the district level, 5 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.

Lincoln-Way Central High School offers 22 AP courses, and 54 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 75 percent is higher than the district average of 71 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.

Lincoln-Way Central High School has an enrollment rate of 10 percent for math classes, and 30 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 21 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 51 percent.

Chicago Vocational Career Acad High School, in Chicago, Ill., is a higher-poverty school than Lincoln-Way Central High School, with 100 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers two AP courses, and 3 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