The U.S. Department of Education released data on disparities in educational resources and opportunities for students across the country. The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) data is the first installment of a two-part biennial survey. The survey covers approximately 7,000 school districts and more than 72,000 schools. The data released in Part 1 includes information on: access to the rigorous sequence of college and career-ready math and science courses, the number of first and second-year teachers in schools, the number of high school counselors in schools, availability of pre-K and kindergarten programs, districts operating under desegregation orders or plans, and whether districts have written policies prohibiting harassment and bullying on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or disability. <\/p>\n
Findings released so far include:<\/p>\n
3,000 schools serving nearly 500,000 high school students offer no algebra 2 classes, and more than 2 million students in about 7,300 schools had no access to calculus classes.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Schools serving mostly African-American students are twice as likely to have teachers with one or two years of experience than are schools within the same district that serve mostly White students. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Only 2% of students with disabilities are taking at least one Advanced Placement class.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Students with limited English proficiency make up 6% of the high school population (in grades 9-12), but are 15% of the students for whom algebra is the highest-level math course taken by the final year of their high school career. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Only 22% of local education agencies (LEAs) reported that they operated pre-k programs targeting children from low-income families.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Girls are underrepresented in physics, while boys are underrepresented in algebra II.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
More information is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n