LISA Academy - EdTribune AR - Arkansas Education Data

Little Rock Fell from #1 to #3 in Seven Years

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Through at least 14 consecutive years of data, Little Rock^↗ enrolled more students than any other district in Arkansas. That ended in 2019, when Springdale^↗ passed it. In 2025, Bentonville^↗ did the same. The state's capital city district, once unchallenged at the top, now sits third, 2,133 students behind Springdale and 980 behind Bentonville. Little Rock enrolled 18,964 students in 2025-26, down 26.3% from its 2008 peak of 25,738.

The 2025-26 loss of 601 students caps a three-year acceleration: the district lost 183 students in 2023-24, 387 in 2024-25, and 601 in 2025-26. Sixteen of the last 20 year-over-year transitions have been losses. Three of the four growth years occurred before 2009; the fourth was a negligible +41 in 2021-22.

Two Arkansases

The crossover at the top of the state's rankings reflects a deeper geographic divergence. Northwest Arkansas, anchored by Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville and a cluster of corporate campuses, has been one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country. The region's population grew by more than 50,000 between 2020 and 2024, with Benton County adding 9,318 residents in a single year.

That population growth translates directly into school enrollment. Bentonville has more than doubled since 2004-05, growing from 9,210 to 19,944 students, a 116.5% increase. Springdale grew 46.0% over the same period, from 14,454 to 21,097. Little Rock's trajectory is the mirror image: down 5,460 from its 2004-05 level of 24,424, a 22.4% loss.

The gap at the 2026 endpoint tells the story. Springdale now enrolls 2,133 more students than Little Rock. Bentonville enrolls 980 more. Neither gap existed a decade ago. Little Rock held a 10,000-student lead over Springdale as recently as 2005.

Where the losses are deepest

The decline is not limited to one demographic group. Black enrollment, which has historically made up the majority of Little Rock's student body, fell from 16,738 in 2004-05 to 10,909 in 2025-26, a loss of 5,829 students (34.8%). White enrollment dropped from 5,968 to 3,410, a 42.9% decline. The only group that grew was Hispanic students, up from 1,226 to 3,326, a 171.3% increase. But that gain of 2,100 students replaced roughly a quarter of the 8,387 lost by Black and white students combined.

The composition has shifted accordingly. Black students made up 68.6% of enrollment in 2005 and 57.5% in 2026. White students dropped from 24.4% to 18.0%. Hispanic students rose from 5.0% to 17.5%, approaching the white share.

The state takeover and its aftermath

The steepest period of decline overlaps with a period of institutional disruption. On January 28, 2015, the Arkansas State Board of Education voted 5-4 to take over the Little Rock School District, immediately dissolving the elected school board. The takeover, officially justified by low-performing schools, lasted until 2019 when local control was partially restored.

During the four years from 2014-15 to 2018-19, the district lost 1,768 students, an average of 442 per year. That rate was steeper than the preceding period (2008-2013 averaged 429 lost per year) but not by much. The losses predated the takeover and continued after it. The enrollment data does not show a sharp discontinuity at either the takeover's beginning or its end.

What the data does show is that the losses never stopped. The post-takeover period, from 2018-19 to 2025-26, produced an additional 2,631 lost students, averaging 376 per year. The pace slowed slightly after the board was restored, but the direction held.

8,471 more students in LR-area charters

One factor shaping the landscape is the growth of charter schools in the Little Rock metro area. In 2004-05, charter-like entities in Pulaski County enrolled 474 students. By 2025-26, that figure had reached 8,945, a gain of 8,471.

LISA Academy^↗, which opened in 2004 with 163 students, has expanded to 4,320 students across multiple campuses, making it the largest charter operator in the Little Rock area. Academics Plus^↗ grew from 311 to 2,001 over the same period. eStem Public Charter School^↗ peaked at 3,202 in 2019-20 before declining to 2,018 in 2025-26.

The charter growth of 8,471 students exceeds Little Rock's total enrollment loss of 5,460 since 2005, but attributing the entire decline to charter competition would be an overreach. The district also lost students to demographic change and to families leaving Little Rock altogether. Census data cited by district officials indicates the eastern part of Little Rock has experienced significant loss of school-age children as families relocated. The Pulaski County Special School District^↗, which surrounds Little Rock, fell from 16,592 to 11,511 between 2014-15 and 2025-26, suggesting metro-wide population loss beyond what charter competition alone explains.

The LEARNS Act, signed in March 2023, added another channel. The law created universal Education Freedom Accounts that allow families to spend public funds on private school tuition. In its first year, fewer than 5% of participants had previously been enrolled in public schools, limiting the initial enrollment impact. But the program became universal in 2025-26, and statewide public school enrollment fell by 8,916 students, the steepest decline in 20 years.

What reporting suggests

"Since 2015, when we received $63,936,734 in state foundation funding, we have seen a decline to $38,479,428 in the same funding in 2024." — Arkansas Times, Nov. 2024

That $25.5 million loss in foundation funding over a decade reflects a formula that follows students. When a district loses enrollment, it loses money, even if its buildings and fixed costs remain. Little Rock now operates buildings with capacity for roughly 23,000 students while enrolling 18,964. Carver Elementary, in east Little Rock, was spending $16,886 per student while serving 232 students in a building designed for 634. The district board voted in late 2024 to consolidate and close schools, merging Carver into Washington Elementary and dispersing Brady Elementary students across six other schools.

"I think that these numbers are going to level off in the next couple of years, but I hope they do, quite frankly." — April Reisma, Arkansas Education Association president, KATV, Sept. 2025

A shrinking share of the state

Little Rock accounted for 5.5% of Arkansas enrollment at its 2008 peak. In 2025-26, that share fell to 4.1%. The decline reflects both the district losing students and statewide enrollment growth that Little Rock did not participate in. Arkansas added nearly 24,000 students between 2005 and 2020, with growth concentrated heavily in the northwest corner. Little Rock, the state's largest city, contributed nothing to it.

The 2025-26 acceleration -- 601 students lost after years of losing 200-400 per year -- could be a one-year anomaly tied to the LEARNS Act rollout or the beginning of a steeper trajectory. The district is navigating school consolidation, charter competition, and voucher expansion all at once. Each of those forces has its own timeline, and none of them is reversing.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

One in 17 Arkansas Students Now Attends a Charter-Like School

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Arkansas does not track charter schools with a formal flag in its enrollment data. Identify them by name, though, and the pattern is unmistakable: 17 entities matching charter, academy, and virtual keywords enrolled 27,451 students in 2025-26, up from 8,416 across 14 entities in 2014-15. Their share of statewide enrollment has more than tripled, from 1.8% to 5.9%.

That growth happened while the state's overall enrollment fell by 10,662 students. Traditional districts lost 29,697. The arithmetic is exact: traditional districts lost 19,035 more students than the statewide total declined. The charter-like sector gained 19,035. Whether those are the same students, or whether both trends have independent causes, the data cannot say.

A methodological caveat up front

The Arkansas Department of Education does not publish a charter school flag in its enrollment-by-race dataset. The analysis here uses a name-pattern proxy, matching entities whose names include terms like "charter," "academy," "virtual," "eStem," or "Haas Hall." This captures the universe of open-enrollment charters and virtual schools but is inherently approximate. Imboden Charter School District^↗, for instance, is a traditional district that happens to carry "charter" in its name (53 students). Its inclusion does not materially change the sector totals.

All enrollment numbers come from the ADE Data Center. The sector labels are the analysis's own classification, not the state's.

Two sectors hiding inside one label

The 5.9% headline number conceals a structural split. Of the 27,451 students in charter-like entities, 11,559 attend just two virtual schools: Arkansas Connections Academy^↗ (5,780) and Arkansas Virtual Academy^↗ (5,779). Together they account for 42.1% of the sector's enrollment.

The brick-and-mortar side, 15 entities enrolling 15,892 students, grew at a steadier pace. Virtual enrollment is the volatile component. Arkansas Virtual Academy sat at a flat 499-500 students from 2008 through 2013, suggesting a regulatory cap. By 2015, it had jumped to 1,647. Connections Academy launched in 2016-17 with 343 students; eight years later it enrolls 5,780.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the virtual side. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, virtual enrollment in the two schools surged from 3,597 to 6,708, an 86.5% increase. Brick-and-mortar charters grew 16% over the same period. Virtual enrollment dipped slightly in 2022 and 2023 as the pandemic receded, then resumed climbing: 7,741 in 2023-24, 9,844 in 2024-25, and 11,559 in 2025-26.

The growth trajectory is not smooth

The sector as a whole actually shrank in 2021-22 and 2022-23, losing 411 and 391 students respectively. That contraction reflected real churn: seven entities present in 2018-19 had disappeared from the data by 2025-26, including Little Rock Preparatory Academy (361 students in 2019), Haas Hall Bentonville (419), and Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy (273).

The dip proved temporary. The sector added 1,077 students in 2023-24, then 2,528, then 3,007 in 2025-26, the largest annual gain since 2019. The acceleration coincides with the LEARNS Act, signed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in March 2023, which removed the cap on charter school authorizations and created the Education Freedom Account voucher program.

Who attends charter-like schools

The charter-like sector serves a different demographic mix than traditional districts. Black students make up 23.7% of charter-like enrollment but 18.8% of traditional enrollment. Asian students are 5.2% versus 1.8%. White students are 47.7% of the charter-like sector, compared with 57.1% of traditional districts. Hispanic enrollment is roughly equal in both sectors (15.9% vs. 15.4%).

LISA Academy^↗, the largest brick-and-mortar charter network at 4,320 students, is STEM-focused and has expanded to 10 campuses across the state, including a hybrid model launched in 2021. It has grown from 163 students in 2004-05 to become the sector's third-largest entity.

eStem Public Charter School^↗ tells the opposite story. After peaking at 3,202 students in 2019-20 (when three separately reported campuses had consolidated under one LEA code), it has declined to 2,018, a 37.0% drop in six years. The decline accelerated after 2022, losing 150 to 380 students annually.

The LEARNS Act and the new competitive landscape

The LEARNS Act reshaped Arkansas school choice in three ways relevant to charter enrollment. First, it removed the numerical cap on open-enrollment charter authorizations. Second, it directed poorly performing districts to partner with charter operators. Third, it created Education Freedom Accounts, which by 2025-26 had approved nearly 47,000 participants, at a projected cost of $327 million.

The EFA program is distinct from charter enrollment. EFA funds flow to private schools and homeschool families, not to public charter schools. But the two programs share a policy ecosystem. The cap removal encourages new charter openings; the voucher program signals a broader shift toward family choice that may accelerate transfers from traditional districts to all non-traditional options.

"95 percent of them already were attending private schools, so this was just an additional expense for the Arkansas taxpayer." — April Reisma, president of the Arkansas Education Association, via KATV, Jan. 2026

That critique applies to the EFA voucher program specifically, not to charter growth. But it underscores the difficulty of disentangling true transfers from enrollment that was never in public schools to begin with.

What traditional districts are losing

The 29,697-student decline in traditional districts since 2014-15 is not spread evenly. Pulaski County Special School District^↗ lost 5,081 students (30.6%), Little Rock School District^↗ lost 4,399 (18.8%), and Pine Bluff^↗ lost 1,582 (37.3%). Delta and southeastern districts bore disproportionate losses.

The divergence chart indexed to 2014-15 tells the story: traditional enrollment has drifted steadily downward to 93.6% of its baseline while charter-like enrollment has risen to 326.2%. But the absolute numbers matter. The traditional sector still enrolls 437,970 students, 94.1% of the state total. The charter-like sector, for all its growth, remains small.

Northwest Arkansas is the one region where traditional districts are growing. Bentonville^↗ added 4,447 students since 2014-15 (+28.7%), driven by population growth in the Walmart headquarters corridor. Fayetteville, Pea Ridge, and Farmington also gained. The charter-like entities with Northwest Arkansas roots, Haas Hall Academy and Arkansas Arts Academy, have also grown, but the traditional districts in that region are gaining students on net.

What comes next

At 5.9%, Arkansas's charter-like sector is still smaller than the national average for states with mature charter laws. The LEARNS Act's removal of the charter cap creates room for further growth, and as many as 18 new charter applications were in the pipeline for 2024-25. If even half succeed and reach scale, the sector could approach 8% within a few years. Whether virtual schools, which have added 7,962 students since 2019, continue to drive that growth or brick-and-mortar operators catch up will determine what "charter growth" actually means: more physical schools in communities, or more students learning from home.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.