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

Metea Valley High School

1801 NORTH EOLA ROAD, AURORA, ILL., 60502 | Grades 9-10

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,225
76
17% 4
District 28.8K 1,786 10% 24
State 1.36M 84,195 14% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Take at Least One AP Course

19%
22%

9%

AP Pass Rate

67%
92%

86%

Take Advanced Math

13%
19%

4%

Take Chemistry

21%
16%

30%

Take Physics

12%
16%

0%

Participate in sports

49%
0.0%

62%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
5%
18%

16% Asian
24%
9%

14% Black
27%
9%

11% Hispanic
43%
59%

55% White

Metea Valley High School, in Aurora, Illinois, is part of the Indian Prairie CUSD 204. The school reports enrolling 1,225 students in grades nine and 10, and it has 76 teachers on staff.

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.

Metea Valley High School offers four AP courses, and 9 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 86 percent is below the district average of 92 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.

Metea Valley High School has an enrollment rate of 30 percent for chemistry classes, and 4 percent of students are enrolled in advanced math.

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