Summary:
The Lonoke School District in Arkansas serves 1,524 students across four schools: Lonoke Primary School (PK-2), Lonoke Elementary School (3-5), Lonoke Middle School (6-8), and Lonoke High School (9-12). The district is ranked 138th out of 251 districts in Arkansas, earning a 2-star rating, and faces significant socioeconomic challenges with an average free/reduced lunch rate of about 62%.
Lonoke Middle School is the district's standout, achieving a 3-star rating and ranking in the 67th percentile—far above the district's 45th percentile. Its Algebra proficiency rate of 67.9% dramatically exceeds the state average of 36.9%. In contrast, Lonoke High School is a mixed bag: it excels in Biology (50.5% proficient vs. 42.7% state) and has a strong graduation rate of 91.4%, but struggles severely in Geometry, where only 16% of students are proficient (state: 26.4%). Lonoke Elementary School is the only school to exceed the state average in Mathematics (45% vs. 44.1% state), yet it lags in Reading (30% vs. 40.4% state) and Science (31.2% vs. 44% state), and its ranking has dropped sharply from the 49th to the 30th percentile. Lonoke Primary School has no test score data available for comparison.
Notably, resource allocation does not directly predict success. Lonoke High School has the highest per-student spending ($12,178) and the lowest student-teacher ratio (8.5:1), yet it is the lowest-ranked school. Meanwhile, Lonoke Middle School achieves the highest ranking with a higher student-teacher ratio (15.1:1) and lower spending ($11,723). This suggests that instructional quality and school culture are more critical than simple resource levels. Overall, the district shows inconsistent year-over-year improvement, with the middle school trending upward while the elementary school declines, pointing to a need for a more uniform district-wide strategy.
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