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

Rowan County Senior High School

499 VIKING DRIVE, MOREHEAD, KY., 40351 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
865
43
21% 8
District 3,440 146 25% 4
State 495K 30,276 11% 9
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

50%
58%

56%

Take at Least One AP Course

18%
5%

5%

AP Pass Rate

39%
46%

46%

Take Advanced Math

12%
5%

6%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

15%
24%

37%

Take Chemistry

17%
18%

20%

Take Physics

7%
4%

4%

Participate in sports

41%
0.0%

56%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
1%

1% Asian
13%
2%

2% Black
4%
1%

1% Hispanic
81%
96%

96% White

Rowan County Senior High School, part of the Rowan County district, is located in Morehead, Kentucky. The school reports enrolling 865 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 43 teachers on staff.

Rowan County Senior 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, 50 percent of students in Kentucky are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 56 percent of Rowan County Senior High School students do. At the district level, 58 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.

Rowan County Senior High School offers eight AP courses, and 5 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams matches the district's, each of which is 46 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.

Rowan County Senior High School has an enrollment rate of 6 percent for math classes, and 20 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 37 percent.

North Oldham High School, in Goshen, Kentucky, is a lower-poverty school than Rowan County Senior High School, with 5 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 20 AP courses, and 39 percent of students are enrolled in those classs.

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