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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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John Jay Senior High School

2012 RT 52, HOPEWELL JUNCTION, N.Y., 12533 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
2,180
140
4% 18
District 12.3K 831 5% 18
State 2.07M 171,244 14% 7
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

49%
11%

5%

Take at Least One AP Course

16%
17%

15%

AP Pass Rate

61%
93%

100%

Take Advanced Math

16%
8%

7%

Take Chemistry

17%
20%

15%

Take Physics

9%
9%

11%

Participate in sports

44%
0.0%

41%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
10%
6%

5% Asian
22%
6%

6% Black
26%
10%

8% Hispanic
42%
77%

81% White

John Jay Senior High School, part of the Wappingers Central School District, is located in Hopewell Junction, New York. The school reports an enrollment number of 2,180 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 140 teachers on staff.

John Jay Senior 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, 49 percent of students in New York are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 5 percent of John Jay Senior High School students are eligible. At the district level, 11 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.

John Jay Senior High School offers 18 AP courses, and 15 percent of students participate in those classes.

For AP tests, the school's pass rate is above the district average, with 100 percent of students passing some or all AP tests. Compare this to the district rate of 93 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.

John Jay Senior High School has an enrollment rate of 7 percent for advanced math classes, and 15 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 11 percent.

High School For Teaching And The Professions, in Bronx, N.Y., is a higher-poverty school than John Jay Senior High School, with 99 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers four AP courses, and 11 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