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.
From http://projects.propublica.org/schools. © Copyright 2011 Pro Publica Inc.
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Amherst County High
139 LANCER LANE, AMHERST, VA., 24521 | Grades 9-12
| Students | Total Teachers | Inexp. Teachers | AP Courses | |
| This School |
1,460
|
118
|
10% | 4 |
| District | 4,680 | 378 | 11% | 4 |
| State | 1.13M | 81,901 | 9% | 14 |
Amherst County High, part of the Amherst County Public Schools district, is located in Amherst, Virginia. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,460 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 118 teachers on staff.
Amherst County High is on par with the state average and below with the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 32 percent of students in Virginia qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, and 32 percent of Amherst County High students do. At the district level, 41 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.
Amherst County High offers four AP courses, and 4 percent of students participate in those classes.
The school's pass rate for AP exams is the same as the district's, both at 83 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.
Amherst County High has an enrollment rate of 4 percent for math classes, and 10 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 5 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 10 percent.
Armstrong High School, in Richmond, Va., is a higher-poverty school than Amherst County High, with 65 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers nine 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
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