This blog is written with Sarah Morris, a Graduate Researcher in OEP and former junior high teacher.
Yesterday, we emailed the district-level third annual Freshman Success Reports (FSR) to superintendents. These informational reports include how likely freshmen in their district are to pass all their courses, what percentage of freshmen are failing at least one course, and what freshman courses in their district are failed most frequently. OEP generates the FSR yearly reports from anonymized student-level data provided by the state.
In the statewide analysis, after controlling for student academic prior achievement and other factors, students who face economic disadvantages were 6 percentage points more likely to fail a course freshman year than their more advantaged peers. Our recent analysis identified 26 districts, however, where freshmen were “way more likely to pass all courses” compared to students in an average district in the state with similar eighth-grade achievement, student demographic and programmatic characteristics, and district characteristics.
Among these 26 districts, we’d like to highlight the top 5 among small, medium, and large districts that had the smallest differences between the likelihood of freshman facing economic disadvantages passing all courses compared to their more advantaged peers. In these districts, economically disadvantaged students were nearly as likely to pass all their courses as their more advantaged peers.
The following 15 districts have closed the success gap for economically disadvantaged freshmen, and we wanted to recognize them as Freshman Success districts!
| Small Districts | Medium Districts | Large Districts | |||||
| District | FRL % | District | FRL % | District | FRL % | ||
| Ark. School for the Deaf | 63 | Camden | 77 | Greenbrier | 40 | ||
| Concord | 59 | Clarksville | 72 | Jonesboro | 73 | ||
| Scranton | 50 | eSTEM | 71 | Nettleton | 69 | ||
| South Side (Van Buren) | 50 | Manila | 56 | Marion | 80 | ||
| Ark. School for the Blind | 43 | Magnolia | 74 | West Memphis | 73 | ||
Who is On Track?
When freshman students fail a course, they don’t receive credit and may fall off track for on-time graduation. For this reason, we also highlight the 15 districts where 100% of their freshmen in the 2022-23 school year were “On Track,” for an on-time graduation which is defined by ADE as having at least 5.5 credits. We are excited to recognize the following districts as places where Freshmen are on track for Success:
- Arkansas Arts
- Arkansas School for the Blind
- Arkansas School for the Deaf
- Bearden
- Caddo Hills
- Concord
- County Line
- Dierks
- Guy-Perkins
- Hermitage
- McCrory
- McGehee
- Mt. Vernon/Enola
- Scranton
- South Side (Van Buren)
*Note: The above “On Track” information does not control for student demographic and programmatic characteristics, prior academic achievement, or district characteristics; these are only descriptive rates.
Special congratulations go to Arkansas School for the Blind, Arkansas School for the Deaf, Concord, Scranton, and South Side (Van Buren) for being on both the closing the failure gap and on track lists!
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What Courses are Students Failing?
Our releases of course failure findings and results have resulted in enriching conversations with practitioners. We know that the ninth-grade year matters, and many Arkansas educators are making influential changes in their schools because of our focus on freshman success. This is now the second year in a row that failure rates have decreased for Arkansas freshmen!
Percentage of Arkansas Freshmen Failing At Least One Course, 2021-22 – 2022-23
| Percentage Failing | ||
| Student Group | 2021-22 | 2022-23 |
| All Freshmen | 25 | 19 |
| Male | 28 | 22 |
| Female | 21 | 15 |
| White | 20 | 15 |
| African American | 38 | 28 |
| Hispanic | 26 | 21 |
| Other Races | 23 | 18 |
| Free or Reduced-Price Lunch | 30 | 24 |
| Special Education | 27 | 23 |
| English Language Learners | 36 | 31 |
| Gifted and Talented | 8 | 5 |
It’s exciting for us to see that failure rates are down 6 percentage points overall across the state. It is also good news that failure rates are down for all student groups, with a 10-percentage point decrease for African American students who have historically failed courses in their freshman year at the highest rates.
In our FSR, we present two lenses for district leaders to examine patterns in freshmen failure:
- which courses have the highest freshman failure rate, even if few freshmen are enrolled in the course? and
- which freshman courses have the highest failure rate among freshmen?
The first lens highlights if freshmen are experiencing a high failure rate when enrolling in courses that aren’t typically taken by freshmen. This information presents an opportunity for school and district leadership to consider what supports may be needed for students who want to take these classes to experience success.
The second lens highlights which freshman courses are most commonly failed, which can create opportunities for district and school leaders to take a closer look into what strategies may be needed to help students succeed.
In 2022-23, Algebra I remained the most failed course in Arkansas by both metrics. It is concerning that more than 5% of freshmen are failing non-core courses like Survey of Business (7%), Economics with Personal Finance (6%), and Visual Art Foundations (5%), but again, for the second year in a row, the overall trend indicates a decrease in failure rates across all courses taken by the majority of freshmen.
Statewide Failure Rate in Courses with Highest Freshman Enrollment, 2021-22 – 2022-23
| Course Name | Freshman Failure % | |
| 2021-22 | 2022-23 | |
| Algebra I | 16 | 11 |
| Physical Science | 12 | 7 |
| English 9 | 11 | 7 |
| Survey of Business | 11 | 7 |
| World History | 9 | 7 |
| Economics with Personal Finance | 8 | 6 |
| Visual Art Foundations | 9 | 5 |
| Civics (0.5 credit) | 6 | 4 |
| Health and Wellness | 5 | 4 |
| Personal Fitness for Life | 3 | 2 |
*Note: The above information does not control for student demographic and programmatic characteristics, prior academic achievement, or district characteristics; this table is only descriptive rates.
We are not suggesting that students should never fail a course or that grades should be falsely inflated. What concerns us is that we continue find that students who experience economic disadvantages outside the classroom are more likely to fail a course freshman year than their peers with similar academic ability. As we have found in prior work, most freshman failures aren’t due to absence policies, so the discrepancies in the likelihood that a student may fail may be due, at least in part, to variations in teacher grading.
We hope Arkansas districts will continue to address disparities in freshman success. As students move to life after high school, freshman GPAs are important, and we encourage teachers to grade students more equitably by focusing their grading on content knowledge and limiting or removing the influence of things like class participation, graded homework, and extra credit points.
GPAs have a long reach, and ensuring they communicate clearly about student academic abilities can help students succeed in high school and beyond!
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If you are concerned about inequities in freshman grading, reach out to OEP! We want to work with you to help implement and monitor changes. If you’d like to take a deeper dive into factors contributing to freshman course failures, a grading practices professional development for your teachers, or help understanding your Freshman Success Report don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at oep@uark.edu.