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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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South Doyle High School

2020 TIPTON STA RD, KNOXVILLE, TENN., 37920 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,240
74
11% 15
District 57.6K 3,084 15% 15
State 877K 57,021 12% 6
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

49%
38%

42%

Take at Least One AP Course

12%
16%

12%

AP Pass Rate

55%
69%

38%

Take Advanced Math

10%
11%

6%

Take Chemistry

19%
21%

19%

Take Physics

3%
2%

2%

Participate in sports

29%
0.0%

29%

Are

0%
0%

1% Am Indian
2%
2%

0% Asian
25%
15%

11% Black
6%
4%

2% Hispanic
67%
78%

85% White

South Doyle High School, part of the Knox County School District, is located in Knoxville, Tennessee. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,240 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 74 teachers on staff.

South Doyle High School 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, 49 percent of students in Tennessee qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 42 percent of South Doyle High School students qualify. At the district level, 38 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.

South Doyle High School offers 15 AP courses, and 12 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams of 38 percent is below the district average of 68 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.

South Doyle High School enrolls 6 percent of students in advanced math classes, and 19 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 2 percent.

Halls High School, in Halls, Tenn., is a higher-poverty school than South Doyle High School, with 94 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