Summary:
The Graduate Arkansas Charter district consists of a single high school, Graduate Arkansas Charter High, serving grades 9-12 in Little Rock, AR, with an enrollment of 557 students. This school is in a state of severe academic crisis, consistently ranking in the bottom 10-15% of all Arkansas high schools, though it has shown slight improvement from the 4th percentile in 2023-2024 to the 14th percentile in 2025-2026.
The most alarming metrics are the catastrophic graduation and dropout rates. The 2024-2025 graduation rate is just 46.7%, less than half the state average of 90.1%, while the dropout rate is an extraordinary 47.0%. This means nearly half of the students are not completing high school. The school also faces a severe resource crisis with a student-teacher ratio of 53.1:1, making individualized instruction nearly impossible. Serving an almost entirely economically disadvantaged population (99.1% free/reduced lunch), the school spends $8,304 per student, which is likely insufficient to address these fundamental staffing shortages.
Despite these challenges, there is a surprising bright spot in math performance. While proficiency in English Language Arts (11.2% vs. state 39.4%) and Biology (18.3% vs. state 42.7%) is critically low, the school's Geometry proficiency (30%) actually exceeds the state average (26.4%). This is driven by strong performance in 11th and 12th grades, where students score 35.7% and 46.2% proficient respectively, compared to state averages of just 10.4% and 10.8%. This likely reflects a "survivor effect," where the most motivated students remain after nearly half have dropped out. The data points to an urgent need for massive intervention focused on student retention, reducing the student-teacher ratio, and providing intensive support for incoming 9th graders who are far behind state averages.
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