Arkansas’s Charter Authorizing Panel on Tuesday was told that the percentage of open-enrollment charter schools that received state-imposed letter grades of D or F increased from last school year to the current one.
Tiffany Grayer, coordinator of school performance and monitoring, told the group that 11.28% of all schools that earned a D or F in 2022 were charter schools, or 37 out of 328. That number grew to 12.87% for the 2023 school year, or 43 out of 334.
There are currently 1,058 traditional public schools in the state and 82 charter schools, meaning about 7.2% of the total are charters.
Of all schools, whether traditional public or charter, 32% were rated D or F in 2023. By comparison, 46% of all charter schools were D or F schools.
The A-F “grades” are calculated based on ACT Aspire test results in literacy, math and science. The scores also take into account student attendance, graduation rates and year-to-year growth on the Aspire tests.
Charter schools in Arkansas are supported by taxpayers and operate according to a contract — or charter — with the state Board of Education. Charter schools are exempt from some of the rules governing traditional public schools.
“The data got even more interesting when I started breaking the data down by grade level,” Grayer said.
In the elementary grades, 6.04% of D or F schools were charter schools in 2022. That number jumped to 7.97% in 2023.
Among middle schools earning a D or F, 14.93% were charters in 2022, compared with 16.17% in 2023.
Of all the high schools in the state, 20.25% of those receiving a D or F grade in 2022 were charter schools. That number grew to 21.25% in 2023.
Grayer highlighted four charter schools that are considered at-risk to show the differences in scores over the years.
Arkansas Lighthouse Academies, for example, received Cs at its Jacksonville Lighthouse Elementary Academy and Jacksonville Lighthouse High School Academy campuses in 2017. In 2022 and 2023, the elementary was rated an F and the high school was rated a D.
Arkansas Lighthouse Academies was identified in 2023 as a school in need of “directed support” from the state Department of Education because 50.55% of its students are “in need of support” for reading.
Founders Classical Academies of Arkansas, a Little Rock charter organization with two campuses in West Little Rock and online elementary and high schools, received an A at its elementary school campus and a C at its high school in 2022. Its online schools did not exist at that time.
By 2023, both elementary and high school campuses scored a D. Its online elementary received an F, and its high school received a D. The online schools were cited for not testing at least 95% of all students in both English Language Arts and math during the spring 2023 assessment and placed on a participation plan of support for the 2023-24 school year.
Friendship Aspire Academies of Arkansas has three schools, two in Little Rock and one in Pine Bluff. From 2022 to 2023, its Little Rock elementary campus went from a C to a D. Friendship’s Little Rock middle school location went from a D to an F during the same period. 56.49% of the school’s students are “in need of support” for reading.
Scholarmade Achievement Place of Arkansas, which has three campuses in Little Rock, scored a D at its Ivy Hill Academy of Scholarship, a D at its Prodigy Preparatory Academy of Service and an F at its Nichols Intermediate Academy of Leadership. By 2023, Ivy Hill and Nichols Intermediate scored Fs while Prodigy Preparatory remained a D. 60.58% of students are “in need of support” for reading.
The Charter Authorizing Panel on Tuesday heard from leaders of each of the four charter networks, all of which gave detailed presentations on changes being made at their campuses.
