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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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School Of Science & Technology

1841 SW MERLO DR, BEAVERTON, ORE., 97006 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
165
7
0% 5
District 37K 1,929 5% 7
State 426K 20,551 7% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

46%
33%

15%

Take at Least One AP Course

16%
24%

85%

AP Pass Rate

61%
72%

93%

Take Advanced Math

13%
21%

27%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

9%
13%

27%

Take Chemistry

12%
17%

0%

Take Physics

6%
9%

9%

Are

2%
0%

0% Am Indian
5%
13%

18% Asian
3%
3%

3% Black
20%
21%

6% Hispanic
66%
56%

64% White

School Of Science & Technology, in Beaverton, Oregon, is part of the Beaverton School District 48J. The school reports enrolling 165 students in grades nine through 12, and it has seven teachers on staff.

School Of Science & Technology 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, 46 percent of students in Oregon are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs, while 15 percent of School Of Science & Technology students are eligible. At the district level, 33 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.

School Of Science & Technology offers five AP courses, and 85 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 93 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.

School Of Science & Technology has an enrollment rate of 27 percent for advanced math classes, and 9 percent of students take physics. The enrollment rate for the school's gifted and talented program is 27 percent.

McKay High School, in Salem, Ore., is a higher-poverty school than School Of Science & Technology, with 93 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 14 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