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

Franklin Police & Fire High School

1645 W. MCDOWELL RD, PHOENIX, ARIZ., 85007 | Grades 9-11

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
210
16
12% N/A
District 24.9K 1,419 6% 6
State 850K 43,995 11% 10
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

47%
66%

87%

Take Advanced Math

13%
7%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
5%

5%

Take Chemistry

13%
11%

14%

Take Physics

5%
2%

0%

Are

3%
3%

0% Am Indian
3%
2%

0% Asian
6%
10%

2% Black
43%
78%

88% Hispanic
44%
6%

7% White

Franklin Police & Fire High School, part of the Phoenix Union High School District, is located in Phoenix, Arizona. The school reports an enrollment number of 210 students in grades nine through 11, and it has 16 teachers on staff.

Franklin Police & Fire High School is above 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, 47 percent of students in Arizona are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, whereas 87 percent of Franklin Police & Fire High School students are eligible. At the district level, 66 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.

Franklin Police & Fire High School hasn't reported or may not offer AP courses.

Beauregard High School has an enrollment rate of 14 percent for chemistry classes, and 5 percent of students are in the gifted and talented program.

Combs High School, in San Tan Valley, Arizona, is a lower-poverty school than Franklin Police & Fire High School, with 40 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers one AP course, and 4 percent of students are enrolled in that class.

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