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  • 6% of Black children and 4% of
    white children in Arkansas are
    uninsured.
    Black children in
    Arkansas are 2 percentage
    points more likely to be
    uninsured than are Black children
    nationwide.
    White children in
    Arkansas are uninsured at a rate
    consistent with the national
    average.
  • Youth Health Insurance
  • 171 of the 686 Census Tracts in
    Arkansas are considered to be in
    a food desert.
    This impacts 11%
    of white Arkansans and 22% of
    Black Arkansans.
    Approximately
    13% of children in Arkansas live
    in a food desert.
  • Food Access
  • The median home price in
    Arkansas is $179,80.
    This is
    495% of the median household
    income for Black Arkansans and
    299% of the median household
    income of white Arkansans.
  • Affordable Housing
  • 22.1% of children in Arkansas
    live in poverty.
    This includes
    17.2% of white children and
    38.4% of Black children.
  • Child Poverty
  • Overall, students in Arkansas
    scored, on average, below the
    national average in both 4th and
    8th grade in Mathematics and
    Reading.
    While white students
    scored above the national
    average on all tests, their Black
    and Latine peers scored well
    below the national average.
  • NAEP Scores
  • The overall 4-year cohort
    graduation rate for Arkansas is
    87%.
    For Black students, this
    rate is only 85%; for white
    students, 90%.
    The disparities in
    graduation rates may be traced
    to disparities in opportunities to
    learn.
  • Graduation Rates
  • Approximately 14% of Black high
    school graduates in 2021
    entered college in the Fall of that
    year.
    In comparison,
    approximately 18% of their white
    peers matriculated.
  • College Matriculation
  • Arkansas ranks 42nd out of 50
    states and Washington D.C. in
    terms of its per pupil funding
    level.
    However, Arkansas
    spends slightly more per student
    relative to its GDP than the
    national average.
    Thus, although
    Arkansas’s overall education
    funding is comparatively low, it
    comes at a slightly higher than
    average effort.
  • Per Pupil Spending
  • The average teacher salary for
    Arkansas is $54,309; however,
    the average starting teacher
    salary is only $37,907.
    Arkansas
    ranks 45th in the nation for
    average teacher salary.
  • Teacher Salary
  • Approximately 31% of districts in
    Arkansas are regressive in their
    spending for Black students
    relative to their white peers.
    This
    is particularly concerning
    because Arkansas already
    spends less, on average, per
    pupil than the national average.
  • Progressive Spending
  • 8.37% of districts in Arkansas
    have been identified as having
    significant disproportionality in
    their identification of students
    with disabilities.
    As such, they
    are required to commit 15% of
    their IDEA funds to remedying
    these disparities.
  • Remedial IDEA Spending

Arkansas Education Investment

  • Black students in Arkansas are
    removed from their learning
    environment at more than
    double the rate of their white
    peers.
    Five out of every 100
    Black students were suspended
    at least once in the 2021-22
    school year, compared to 2 out
    of every 100 white students.
  • Exclusionary Discipline
  • Black students were bullied on
    the basis of race at more than
    twice the rate of their white peers
    (7 incidents per 10,000 Black
    students and 3 incidents per
    10,000 white students were
    reported).
  • Bullying
  • Schools in Arkansas have
    approximately 3 school
    psychologists and 3 social
    workers per 10,000 students.
  • School Psychologists
  • Schools in Arkansas have
    approximately 7 school safety
    staff per 10,000 students, more
    than school psychologists and
    social workers combined.
  • School Police
  • 94.6% of teachers teaching in
    Arkansas are certified.
    Overall,
    the student to teacher ratio in
    Arkansas is 12:1.
  • Access to Teachers
  • While 9.8% of white students in Arkansas receive the benefits of enrichment in Gifted and Talented courses, only 5.6% of Black students benefit from this enrichment. While 6.5% of white students participate in AP courses, only 3.8% of Black Arkansas students are enrolled in these same courses.
  • Challenging Curriculum
  • Arkansas’s rates of identification
    for Special Education are
    relatively robust and comparable
    for Black (19.15%) and white
    (19.83%) students.
  • Special Education

Arkansas

Arkansas Community Context

Arkansas Student Achievement

Arkansas Student Experience

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Out-of-School Factors

Within-School Factors

The Opportunity to Learn Dashboard is a joint
project of the National Center for Youth Law and
The Schott Foundation for Public Education.

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