FAYETTEVILLE -- The Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville last week posted education "report cards" for traditional school districts and charter schools in Pulaski County and in Northwest Arkansas.
The report cards are intended to "provide an easy-to-understand overview of how students in the area schools performed in the 2021-22 school year," the last year for which complete data is available.
The reports look at the data both broadly and on an individual campus basis.
The findings? "Northwest Arkansas students demonstrated greater growth in achievement and earned higher scores on the ACT Aspire than students in the state overall. Schools in NWA also have higher School Quality and Student Success scores than other schools across the state," according to the report's introduction for the 15 districts and 11 open-enrollment charter schools.
Haas Hall Academy charter schools and the Bentonville School District received several top rankings in the northwest part of the state. Rogers School District was lauded for school performance in a system in which more than 50% of students are from low-income families.
For Pulaski County, the education researchers concluded that "students are demonstrating similar growth in achievement to students in the state overall. However, students in Pulaski County schools demonstrated lower academic achievement, School Quality and Student Success scores, and graduation rates than students in the state overall."
The highest overall performers in Pulaski County were Friendship Aspire charter school for academic growth, Academics Plus charter school system for achievement and school quality, and eStem Charter High School for graduation rate.
The Office for Education Policy report cards are available for public viewing here: https://oep.uark.edu/updated-2022-report-cards/.