Little Rock
Little Rock's Graduation Rate Climbed for a Third Year. Bryant Sets the Bar at 96 Percent.
Little Rock School District graduated 82.3 percent of its students in 2024 — its highest rate since reappearing in the state graduation data after six years under state control. The number is up from ...
19 Arkansas Districts Defied Two Years of Rising Absence
In 2022-23, most Arkansas districts improved on chronic absenteeism. The statewide rate fell from 26.9% to 17.7%, and 215 of 238 districts with data moved in the right direction. Recovery seemed under...
Arkansas Is Graduating 89 Percent of Its Students. That Puts It Above the National Average.
Arkansas graduated 89 percent of its high school students in 2024, two percentage points above the national average of roughly 87 percent. For a state whose other education metrics tend to sit near th...
Little Rock Cut Chronic Absence to 6.7% While Adding 1,800 Students
Growing and improving at the same time is one of the hardest things a school district can do. Adding students typically strains transportation, staffing, and the personal relationships that keep kids ...
95 Districts at Record Lows, 22 at Highs: Arkansas Splits in Two
Bentonville added 370 students this year. It is one of 22 Arkansas districts at all-time enrollment highs. Ninety-five districts, meanwhile, just recorded their lowest headcounts in at least two decad...
Bryant Went from 94% White to 50% While Growing
In 2005, Bryant School District enrolled 6,598 students. Ninety-four percent of them were white. The district sat in Saline County, a bedroom community south of Little Rock that the Encyclopedia of Ar...
Bentonville Passes Little Rock as Arkansas's No. 2 District
In 2004-05, Little Rock enrolled 24,424 students. Bentonville enrolled 9,210. The capital city's school district was nearly three times the size of the small northwest Arkansas district anchored by Wa...
Little Rock Fell from #1 to #3 in Seven Years
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....
Three Out of Four Arkansas Districts Still Below Pre-COVID Enrollment
Arkansas public schools enrolled 479,432 students in 2019-20, the most in the state's modern history. Six years later, 14,011 of those students are gone, and the recovery that briefly appeared possibl...
One in 17 Arkansas Students Now Attends a Charter-Like School
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 ke...
Arkansas Lost More Students This Year Than COVID Took
The COVID-19 pandemic was supposed to be the shock. In 2020-21, Arkansas public schools lost 6,428 students in a single year, the kind of enrollment hit that prompts emergency budget meetings and anxi...
After 21 Years of Growth, Hispanic Enrollment Falls for the First Time
For 20 consecutive years, one line on Arkansas's enrollment chart only moved in one direction. Hispanic student enrollment grew every single year from 2005 through 2025 (with 2014 missing from the dat...