Summary:
Zip code 72205 in Little Rock, Arkansas, is home to two high schools: Lisa Academy West High School and Arkansas School For The Blind High School, which serve grades 9-12 and represent vastly different educational missions.
Lisa Academy West High School is a public charter school with 394 students and is the more traditional option in the area. It has a high rate of economic disadvantage, with 76% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, and spends $12,595 per student. While its English and reading scores are near the state average, the school faces a significant challenge in mathematics, with only 6.4% of students proficient in Algebra compared to the state average of 36.9%. Its graduation rate is strong at 93.5%, and it is part of the Lisa Academy district, which is ranked in the 72nd percentile statewide. In contrast, Arkansas School For The Blind High School is a specialized state-run school serving only 32 visually impaired students from across the state. It has an extremely low student-teacher ratio of 2.7:1, but its test scores and graduation rate (58.3%) reflect the profound challenges of its unique student population. Despite this, the school achieved a remarkable state ranking of 38th out of 305 schools (88th percentile) in 2023-2024, though this ranking is highly volatile due to its small size.
The most important takeaway for parents is that these two schools cannot be directly compared. Lisa Academy West is a solid, mainstream option with a notable math weakness that families should investigate, while Arkansas School For The Blind is a specialized resource for students with visual impairments. The data also reveals an interesting anomaly at Lisa Academy West: 9th graders taking the Biology exam had an 88.9% proficiency rate, compared to only 26.9% for 10th graders, a 62-point gap that may indicate advanced course placement for select students rather than a school-wide trend.
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