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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.

Find a school

Pocono Mountain East Junior High School

PO BOX 200, SWIFTWATER, PA., 18370 | Grades 8-9

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
845
69
16% N/A
District 10.8K 934 11% 10
State 1.2M 85,389 11% 10
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

34%
47%

31%

Take Advanced Math

19%
22%

0%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

5%
2%

2%

Take Chemistry

21%
34%

0%

Take Physics

11%
25%

0%

Participate in sports

45%
0.0%

20%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
4%
2%

2% Asian
19%
24%

18% Black
10%
21%

15% Hispanic
67%
53%

64% White

Pocono Mountain East Junior High School, part of the Pocono Mountain district, is located in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania. The school reports enrolling 845 students in grades eight and nine, and it has 69 teachers on staff.

Pocono Mountain East Junior High School is below both the state and district averages for the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. On average, 34 percent of students in Pennsylvania qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, whereas 31 percent of students at Pocono Mountain East Junior High School are eligible. At the district level, 47 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.

Pocono Mountain East Junior High School hasn't reported or may not offer AP courses.

Pocono Mountain East Junior High School's enrollment rate for gifted and talented is 2 percent.

Pocono Mountain West Junior High School, in Pocono Summit, Pa., is a higher-poverty school than Pocono Mountain East Junior High School, with 56 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not offer AP classes.

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