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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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Bear Creek High School

9800 W. DARTMOUTH PLACE, LAKEWOOD, COLO., 80227 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,860
92
5% 18
District 79.5K 4,370 4% 12
State 669K 37,345 13% 11
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

35%
25%

21%

Take at Least One AP Course

20%
22%

25%

AP Pass Rate

64%
82%

75%

Take Advanced Math

19%
18%

16%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

8%
9%

7%

Take Chemistry

18%
19%

21%

Take Physics

8%
10%

5%

Participate in sports

48%
0.0%

43%

Are

1%
1%

1% Am Indian
4%
4%

6% Asian
6%
2%

2% Black
29%
20%

25% Hispanic
60%
73%

66% White

Bear Creek High School, in Lakewood, Colorado, is part of the Jefferson County School District No. R-1. The school reports enrolling 1,860 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 92 teachers on staff.

Bear Creek 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, 35 percent of students in Colorado qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, whereas 21 percent of students at Bear Creek High School are eligible. At the district level, 25 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.

Bear Creek High School offers 18 AP courses, and 25 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams is 75 percent. This is lower than the district average of 82 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.

Bear Creek High School has an enrollment rate of 16 percent for math classes, and 21 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 7 percent.

Abraham Lincoln High School, in Denver, Colo., is a higher-poverty school than Bear Creek High School, with 81 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 12 AP courses, and 16 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