Summary:
The Magazine School District is a small, rural district in Arkansas serving 524 students across two schools: Magazine Elementary School (Pre-K through 6th grade) and Magazine High School (7th through 12th grade), with both schools serving a high-poverty population where over two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Magazine Elementary School is the clear standout in the district, outperforming state averages in Mathematics (44.8% vs. 44.1%) and Science (48% vs. 44%) for the 2025-2026 school year. The most remarkable finding is the exceptional performance of the 5th grade class, which exceeds state averages by over 20 percentage points in Math and Science and by over 27 percentage points in English Language Arts. This suggests a particularly effective teacher or instructional strategy at that grade level. However, the school's ranking has declined from the 82nd percentile in 2023-2024 to the 51st percentile in 2025-2026, and there is a dramatic performance gap between the high-achieving 5th grade and the significantly below-average 4th grade.
Magazine High School is the district's area of concern, with its ranking plummeting from the 50th percentile (3-star) in 2023-2024 to the 28th percentile (1-star) in 2025-2026. The high school struggles in core academics, particularly in advanced math courses like Algebra (22.9% vs. 36.9% state) and Biology (31.6% vs. 42.7% state). Despite a favorable student-teacher ratio of 8.9:1 and spending over $15,600 per student, academic performance is declining. On a positive note, the high school boasts a graduation rate of 92.6%, above the state average of 90.1%. A key takeaway is that the elementary school's success does not carry over to high school, as 7th graders perform well in Math (68.6%) but scores drop significantly by 8th grade (40.7%), indicating a potential "middle school slump" that undermines the strong foundation built in elementary school.
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