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

South Oak Cliff High School

3601 S MARSALIS AVE, DALLAS, TEXAS, 75216 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,215
91
7% 12
District 156K 10,584 10% 15
State 4.01M 269,017 14% 15
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

48%
86%

73%

Take at Least One AP Course

20%
25%

15%

AP Pass Rate

48%
34%

13%

Take Advanced Math

10%
23%

16%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
11%

8%

Take Chemistry

26%
28%

27%

Take Physics

14%
16%

9%

Participate in sports

32%
0.0%

36%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
4%
1%

0% Asian
15%
26%

75% Black
50%
68%

23% Hispanic
29%
4%

0% White

South Oak Cliff High School, part of the Dallas ISD, is located in Dallas, Texas. The school reports enrolling 1,215 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 91 teachers on staff.

South Oak Cliff High School is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 48 percent of students in Texas qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 73 percent of South Oak Cliff High School students do. At the district level, 86 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 Oak Cliff High School offers 12 AP courses, and 15 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams is 13 percent. This is lower than the district average of 34 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 Oak Cliff High School's enrollment rates in chemistry, physics and advanced math subject areas are 27 percent, 9 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Gifted and talented at the school has an enrollment rate of 8 percent.

Highland Park High School, a lower-poverty school than South Oak Cliff High School, does not have any students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school enrolls 56 percent of its students in AP classes. It is also located in Dallas, Texas.

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