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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.

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Liberty High

319 SUMMIT DRIVE, LIBERTY, S.C., 29657 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
645
36
11% 6
District 17.3K 1,029 10% 8
State 664K 43,359 9% 7
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

51%
43%

44%

Take at Least One AP Course

10%
10%

12%

AP Pass Rate

50%
62%

33%

Take Advanced Math

18%
13%

22%

Take Chemistry

18%
12%

23%

Take Physics

5%
4%

0%

Participate in sports

36%
0.0%

55%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
1%
1%

0% Asian
36%
7%

6% Black
6%
4%

2% Hispanic
55%
84%

91% White

Liberty High, part of the Pickens 01 district, is located in Liberty, South Carolina. The school reports enrolling 645 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 36 teachers on staff.

Liberty High is below the state average but above the district average for the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 51 percent of students in South Carolina qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 44 percent of Liberty High students qualify. At the district level, 43 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.

Liberty High offers six AP courses, and 12 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 33 percent is below the district average of 62 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.

Liberty High has enrollment rates of 23 percent and 22 in chemistry and math classes, respectively.

Lake Marion High, in Santee, S.C., is a higher-poverty school than Liberty High, with 87 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers four AP courses, and 4 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