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Charter Schools In Northwest Arkansas: Patterns In Enrollment And Characteristics Of Student Movers, Matthew H. Lee, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Arkansas Education Reports

Charter schools in northwest Arkansas are frequently praised for their academic performance and criticized for their lack of diversity. Using publicly available anonymized data from the Arkansas Department of Education, we use 11 years of enrollment trends in northwest Arkansas public schools, considering student demographic characteristics, free- or reduced-price lunch status, limited English proficiency status, special education status, and performance on state standardized reading and math assessments, to analyze enrollment trends in northwest Arkansas traditional public schools and charter schools, as well as the characteristics of students who voluntarily switch sectors. We find that northwest Arkansas charter schools are not …