Arkansas

Press Release

February 11, 2025

Contact: Sam Stockwell
samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu
617.495.0342

Arkansas Ranks 23^rd Among States in Math Recovery and 19^th in Reading between 2019 and 2024.

Average student achievement in Arkansas remains 45 percent of a grade equivalent below 2019 levels in math and 42 percent of a grade equivalent in reading.

Chronic absenteeism has risen sharply in Arkansas, from 22% of students in 2019 to 28% in 2022, significantly slowing recovery efforts in some districts.

(February 11, 2025) In its third year of reporting on the pace of academic recovery measures in districts nationwide, the Education Recovery Scorecard (a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University) is issuing its annual report on district-level student growth in math and reading.

The latest report also provides the first high resolution picture of where Arkansas students’ academic recovery stood in Spring 2024, just before federal relief dollars expired in September. While the National Assessment of Educational Progress described changes in average achievement by state, we combine those scores with district scores on state assessments to describe the change in local communities throughout Arkansas. Here’s what we found:

Arkansas ranks 23rd among states in terms of the change in math achievement between 2019 and 2024, and 19th in reading.
Average student achievement in Arkansas remains 45 percent of a grade equivalent below 2019 levels in math and 42 percent of a grade equivalent in reading. In other words, the loss in achievement in Arkansas is greater than 40 percent of the progress students typically make annually between grades 4 through grade 8. Some districts, such as Benton, Conway, Little Rock, West Memphis and Jacksonville North Pulaski, remain close to a full grade equivalent or more behind in math. We were not able to measure district-level achievement changes in reading because the data reported for Arkansas is not comparable to the data reported by the state in either reading or English.
Yet many Arkansas districts have made good progress. Approximately 16 percent of Arkansas students are enrolled in districts which are already scoring above 2019 levels in math. Examples of districts which have recovered (or nearly recovered) in math are Bentonville (fully recovered) and Jonesboro, Van Buren, and Rogers (which remain less than .25 grade equivalents below their 2019 achievement.)
Chronic absenteeism (students missing more than 10 percent of a school year) rose from 22 percent of students in 2019 to 28 percent in 2024, thus slowing the recovery in many districts in Arkansas.
Arkansas received $1.9 billion in federal pandemic relief for K-12 schools—or roughly $3,900 per student. (That is above the national average of $3,700 per student.) Nationally, our analysis suggests that the dollars did contribute to the academic recovery, especially when it was targeted at academic catch-up efforts such as summer learning and tutoring.

The federal pandemic relief dollars may be gone now, but the pandemic’s impact lingers in many Arkansas schools. States could be targeting continuing federal Title I dollars and state dollars to implement interventions which have been shown effective. State leaders, mayors, employers and other community leaders should join schools to redouble efforts on the shared challenge of reducing student absenteeism.

One of the project leaders, Professor Tom Kane at Harvard, said: “Tackling absenteeism is one of the few things that mayors, employers and other community leaders can do to help students recover.”

For the national press release and findings click here.

About the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University

The Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, seeks to transform education through quality research and evidence. CEPR and its partners believe all students will learn and thrive when education leaders make decisions using facts and findings, rather than untested assumptions. Learn more at cepr.harvard.edu.

Contact: Sam Stockwell, samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu, (617) 495-0342

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