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

Barberton High School

555 BARBER RD, BARBERTON, OHIO, 44203 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,215
95
5% 7
District 4,065 312 8% 7
State 1.03M 62,027 6% 7
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

37%
63%

47%

Take at Least One AP Course

13%
5%

5%

Take Advanced Math

15%
6%

6%

Take Chemistry

16%
20%

20%

Take Physics

7%
2%

2%

Participate in sports

40%
0.0%

36%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
2%
1%

2% Asian
24%
15%

13% Black
4%
1%

0% Hispanic
68%
82%

85% White

Barberton High School, part of the Barberton City district, is located in Barberton, Ohio. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,215 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 95 teachers on staff.

Barberton High School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 37 percent of students in Ohio qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 47 percent of Barberton High School students do. At the district level, 63 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.

Barberton High School offers seven AP courses, and 5 percent of students participate in those classes.

Barberton High School has an enrollment rate of 6 percent for advanced math classes, and 20 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 2 percent.

Dublin Jerome High School, in Dublin, Ohio, is a lower-poverty school than Barberton High School, with 1 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 14 AP courses, and 35 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