Summary:
The city of Fordyce, Arkansas, is served by the Fordyce School District, which includes two public schools—Fordyce Elementary Schools (Pre-K through 6th grade) and Fordyce High School (7th through 12th grade)—with a combined enrollment of 659 students and a high level of economic disadvantage, as over 73% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Comparing the two schools, Fordyce Elementary Schools stands out as the stronger performer, particularly in mathematics, where its 4th grade achieved a 51.3% proficiency rate—exceeding the state average of 47.0%. The elementary school also showed year-over-year improvement in all core subjects, with math proficiency rising from 31.3% to 35.3%. In contrast, Fordyce High School faces significant academic challenges, especially in advanced math: only 9.9% of students were proficient in Geometry and 18.1% in Algebra, both well below state averages. However, the high school boasts a graduation rate of 92.8%, above the state average of 90.1%, indicating it effectively keeps students on track to graduate despite low test scores.
Key metrics reveal a spending paradox: Fordyce Elementary Schools spends $20,358 per student, far more than the high school's $13,434, yet overall proficiency rates at both schools remain well below state averages. A notable pattern is the "4th grade peak," where academic performance declines after 4th grade, with math proficiency dropping from 51.3% in 4th grade to 22.8% by 6th grade. Additionally, the high school shows a critical bottleneck in advanced math, as proficiency in Algebra plummets from 61.6% among 8th graders to just 4.8% among 9th graders. While both schools improved year-over-year, the high school's starting point was so low that it remains in a critical state, highlighted by a 0% Geometry proficiency rate in the prior year.
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