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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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Bristol Eastern High School

632 KING STREET, BRISTOL, CONN., 06010 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,305
91
12% 12
District 8,665 597 8% 12
State 407K 31,215 8% 10
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

34%
37%

28%

Take at Least One AP Course

16%
14%

18%

AP Pass Rate

66%
61%

61%

Take Advanced Math

18%
15%

16%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

6%
5%

11%

Take Chemistry

18%
16%

18%

Take Physics

8%
7%

6%

Participate in sports

57%
0.0%

54%

Are

0%
0%

0% Am Indian
5%
3%

3% Asian
16%
8%

8% Black
21%
16%

11% Hispanic
58%
74%

78% White

Bristol Eastern High School, part of the Bristol School District, is located in Bristol, Connecticut. The school reports an enrollment number of 1,305 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 91 teachers on staff.

Bristol Eastern 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, 34 percent of students in Connecticut qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, whereas 28 percent of students at Bristol Eastern High School are eligible. At the district level, 37 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.

Bristol Eastern High School offers 12 AP courses, and 18 percent of students participate in those classes.

The school's pass rate for AP exams is the same as the district's, both at 61 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.

Bristol Eastern High School's enrollment rates in chemistry, physics and advanced math subject areas are 18 percent, 6 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Gifted and talented at the school has an enrollment rate of 11 percent.

Harding High School, in Bridgeport, Conn., is a higher-poverty school than Bristol Eastern High School, with 99 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school offers 10 AP courses, and 10 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