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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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Western Hills High School

100 DOCTORS DR, FRANKFORT, KY., 40601 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
750
46
4% 12
District 6,085 367 14% 12
State 495K 30,276 11% 9
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

50%
44%

31%

Take at Least One AP Course

18%
19%

12%

AP Pass Rate

39%
44%

47%

Take Advanced Math

12%
3%

2%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

15%
8%

15%

Take Chemistry

17%
6%

9%

Take Physics

7%
4%

1%

Participate in sports

41%
0.0%

63%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
2%

1% Asian
13%
14%

7% Black
4%
4%

1% Hispanic
81%
81%

91% White

Western Hills High School, part of the Franklin County district, is located in Frankfort, Kentucky. The school reports enrolling 750 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 46 teachers on staff.

Western Hills 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, 50 percent of students in Kentucky are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 31 percent of Western Hills High School students are eligible. At the district level, 44 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.

Western Hills High School offers 12 AP courses, and 12 percent of students participate in those classes.

For AP tests, the school's pass rate is above the district average, with 47 percent of students passing some or all AP tests. Compare this to the district rate of 44 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.

Western Hills High School's enrollment rates in chemistry, physics and advanced math subject areas are 9 percent, 1 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Gifted and talented at the school has an enrollment rate of 15 percent.

Johnson Central High School, in Paintsville, Ky., is a higher-poverty school than Western Hills High School, with 89 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 12 AP courses, and 20 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