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.
From http://projects.propublica.org/schools. © Copyright 2011 Pro Publica Inc.
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Walter Johnson High
6400 ROCK SPRING DR, BETHESDA, MD., 20814 | Grades 9-12
| Students | Total Teachers | Inexp. Teachers | AP Courses | |
| This School |
2,070
|
128
|
7% | 31 |
| District | 141K | 10,180 | 12% | 22 |
| State | 826K | 56,262 | 11% | 15 |
Walter Johnson High, part of the Montgomery County Public Schools district, is located in Bethesda, Maryland. The school reports enrolling 2,070 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 128 teachers on staff.
Walter Johnson High 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, 34 percent of students in Maryland are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 6 percent of Walter Johnson High students are eligible. At the district level, 27 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.
Walter Johnson High offers 31 AP courses, and 53 percent of students participate in those classes.
The school's pass rate for AP exams of 85 percent is higher than the district average of 72 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.
Walter Johnson High has an enrollment rate of 28 percent for math classes, and 23 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 86 percent.
Vivien T Thomas Medical Arts Academy, in Baltimore, Md., is a higher-poverty school than Walter Johnson High, with 81 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers two AP courses, and 6 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
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