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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Northwood High School
919 UNIVERSITY BLVD W, SILVER SPRING, MD., 20901 | Grades 9-12
| Students | Total Teachers | Inexp. Teachers | AP Courses | |
| This School |
1,395
|
96
|
25% | 16 |
| District | 141K | 10,180 | 12% | 22 |
| State | 826K | 56,262 | 11% | 15 |
Northwood High School, part of the Montgomery County Public Schools district, is located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The school reports enrolling 1,395 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 96 teachers on staff.
Northwood High School is below the state average but above the district average for the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 34 percent of students in Maryland qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 31 percent of Northwood High School students qualify. At the district level, 27 percent of students qualify.
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.
Northwood High School offers 16 AP courses, and 34 percent of students participate in those classes.
The school's pass rate for AP exams of 48 percent is below 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.
Northwood High School has an enrollment rate of 10 percent for math classes, and 18 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 33 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 69 percent.
Vivien T Thomas Medical Arts Academy, in Baltimore, Md., is a higher-poverty school than Northwood High School, 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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