Arkansas Middle School

Arkansas Middle School in Texarkana, AR, serves 842 students in grades 6 through 8 within the Texarkana School District, and it is significantly larger than nearby middle schools like Paulette Smith Middle School (303 students) and Ashdown Junior High School (244 students). The school serves a student population with extremely high economic need, as 100% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a rate far higher than the 65.98% at Paulette Smith or the 38.28% at Gary E. Cobb Middle School in the Genoa Central School District. Despite spending a relatively high $14,683 per student and maintaining a favorable student-teacher ratio of 11.9:1, the school consistently ranks in the bottom 20% of Arkansas middle schools, with a 1-star rating and a state ranking that has fallen from the 22nd percentile to the 11th percentile.

Academically, Arkansas Middle School’s proficiency rates are drastically lower than its peers in nearly every subject. For the 2025-2026 school year, only 18.1% of students were proficient in mathematics, compared to 42.0% at Paulette Smith and 69.6% at Gary E. Cobb. In English Language Arts, the school’s 23.1% proficiency rate is the lowest among nearby schools, with the next closest being Paulette Smith at 32.8%. However, there is a notable bright spot: 38.3% of students taking Algebra were proficient, which is higher than the state average of 36.9% and significantly higher than the district average of 12.5%. This suggests the school may be effectively accelerating a specific group of high-performing students into Algebra, while the general math curriculum for the remaining students struggles.

Despite the low absolute scores, there is a slight upward trend in core subjects over the last three years, with English Language Arts rising from 20.6% to 23.1% and mathematics from 16.5% to 18.1%. The school’s high spending relative to its low performance raises questions about resource allocation, especially when compared to schools like Albert J. Murphy Junior High School in the Genoa Central district, which serves a more affluent population and achieves top-tier results. For parents, this data suggests that while the school faces significant challenges tied to high poverty, there are faint signs of improvement and a unique strength in Algebra that may benefit some students.