By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Aug 02, 2011 at 11:16 AM

The ProPublica website has analyzed federal education data from the 2009-2010 school year as a means of seeing if states offer equal access to educational opportunities.

According to the site, "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."

A chart on the left side of the main page shows how each state is faring in relation to the others. Despite the colorful graphic, if you compare the numbers, Wisconsin is at or within a percentage point of the national average for kids in AP courses, advanced math and chemistry. The state is two points ahead of the nation in gifted/talented program participation and 3 points ahead for children taking physics classes.

Here are some of the numbers for Milwaukee as compared to the state average:

  • Number of students: 71,620 (MPS), 418,825 (Wisconsin)
  • Percentage of inexperienced teachers (in first or second year): 8 percent (MPS and Wisconsin)
  • Get free/reduced lunch: 77 percent (MPS), 36 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Average number of AP courses: 0 (MPS), 9 (Wisconsin). (Note: ProPublica's Jennifer LaFleur says that zero usually signifies a rounding down of a number below one percent.)
  • Take at least one AP course: 7 percent (MPS), 18 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Take advanced math (high school): 0 percent (MPS), 16 percent (Wisconsin). (Note: This is one "rounding down" that I'm not sure I trust. I searched the MPS high schools and most high schools had students taking these classes: 1 percent take it at Custer; 7 percent at Madison; 8 percent at Bradley Tech; 9 percent at Vincent; 10 percent at King; 11 percent at High School of the Arts, South Division and Bay View; 12 percent at Hamilton; and 20 percent at Riverside.  Only three traditional district high schools show zero and one of them is Reagan, which seems unlikely. The others are Pulaski and Marshall.)
  • Are in a gifted/talented program (at schools offering them): 100 percent (MPS), 12 percent (Wisconsin) (Note: 100 percent seems high except that at gifted and talented schools, all children might take part in the program.)
  • Take chemistry (high school): 0 percent (MPS), 19 percent (Wisconsin) (Note: There are no stats for chemistry and physics on individual schools pages.)
  • Take physics (high school): 0 percent (MPS), 11 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Are American Indian: 1 percent (MPS and Wisconsin)
  • Are Asian: 4 percent (MPS), 5 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Are black: 59 percent (MPS), 15 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Are Hispanic: 21 percent (MPS), 11 percent (Wisconsin)
  • Are white: 14 percent (MPS), 67 percent (Wisconsin)

Here is raw data for MPS schools, on a school by school basis. You can also see individual school data. An example of that is here.

Interestingly, ProPublica says that, nationally:

"While we found some relationship between the proportion of minority students at schools and access to programs, we found the strongest relationship with the percent of students getting free- reduced-price lunches – a variable often used in education research to estimate poverty at schools."

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.