“Best Freshman Success”

_{This blog is written with Sarah Morris, a Graduate Researcher in OEP and former junior high teacher.}

If you’ve been following OEP research, you know that we care a lot about student success during the freshman year of high school. Our research has shown:

• 1 in 5 Arkansas freshman fail at least one course.
• Economically disadvantaged students in Arkansas are twice as likely to fail a course freshman year compared to their more advantaged peers that have similar prior test scores.
• Freshman GPAs can be a better predictor of college enrollment than test scores.
• Arkansas freshmen in buildings that serve grades 7-9, 8-9, and 9 only have a lower likelihood of course failure than similar students in traditional high school 9-12 building configurations.
• Freshman in some districts are more likely to pass all their courses than similar students in other districts.

Best Freshman Success

To help district leaders quickly understand how successful the freshman are in their district, OEP generates Freshman Success Reports. These district-specific informational reports include how likely freshmen are to pass all their courses, what percentage of freshmen are failing at least one course, and what freshman courses are the most likely to be failed. Last Thursday, Freshman Success Reports for 2020-21 and 2021-22 freshman classes were provided to Superintendents and high school leaders statewide.

The recent reports revealed that in 24 districts, freshmen were “way more likely to pass all courses” compared to students with similar 8^th grade achievement and characteristics in an average district in the state. This was true for all freshman and for those who face economic disadvantages outside of school, which is great because we know that economically disadvantaged students are at the greatest risk of failure.

Among these 24 districts where freshmen were most likely to experience success, we identified the ten that had the smallest differences in the likelihood of freshman facing economic disadvantages passing all courses and that of their more advantaged peers. Once we control for student academic prior achievement and other factors, we find students who face economic disadvantages are 7 percentage points more likely to fail a course freshman year than their more advantaged peers. In these districts, however, economically disadvantaged students were nearly as likely to pass all their courses as their more advantaged peers.

The following ten districts, listed alphabetically, have closed the success gap for freshmen, and we wanted to recognize them as our first “Best Freshman Success” districts!

• El Dorado
• eStem Public Charter
• Greene County Tech
• Jonesboro
• Magnolia
• Marion
• Rogers
• Springdale
• Van Buren
• West Memphis

Note: We calculated these top ten by controlling for student demographic and programmatic characteristics, student academic prior achievement, student absences, student disciplinary infractions, district-wide percentage of economically disadvantaged students, district enrollment sizes, and district fixed characteristics.

2021-22 Freshman Course Failures, Statewide

Last year’s release of course failure findings and results brought about enriching conversations with practitioners and practical implications for Arkansas educators. Since Arkansas schools found our reports helpful and because we know the ninth-grade year matters, we have updated our statewide findings with the most recent year of available data, 2021-22. You can check out the new report here.  Unlike the success likelihoods discussed above, the following information does not control for student demographic and programmatic characteristics, prior academic achievement, or district characteristics; this information is only descriptive.

As presented in the table below, in 2021-22, 1 in 4 freshman in Arkansas failed at least one course. Nearly 20% more Black students experienced course failure than White students. Nearly one in three of freshmen who participated in the Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program, our proxy for economic disadvantages, failed at least one course. Overall though, failure rates decreased since 2020-21.

Percentage of Arkansas Freshmen Failing a Course, 2020-21 – 2021-22

	Percentage Failing
Student Group	2020-21	2021-22
All Freshmen	32	25
Male	35	28
Female	29	21
White	26	20
Black	50	38
Hispanic	33	26
Other Races	31	23
Free or Reduced-Price Lunch	40	30
Special Education	34	27
English Language Learners	41	36
Gifted and Talented	13	8

What Common Courses are Freshmen Failing?

There are two ways of presenting which courses freshman are most likely to fail: 1) courses with the highest rate of freshman failure, even if very few freshman are enrolled in the course and 2) the failure rate among courses most likely to be taken by freshmen. We provide both perspectives in the Freshman Success Reports, but here we focus on the failure rates for the past two years in the most common freshman courses, ordered by enrollment. Note that Athletics was more highly enrolled than Spanish in 2021-22, so replaces it on the list. Freshmen in 2021-22 continue to fail Algebra I at the highest rate, followed by Physical Science, English 9, and Survey of Business. The overall trend indicates a decrease in failure rates between the academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Failure Rate in Courses with Highest Freshman Enrollment 2020-21 – 2021-22

Course Name	Failure Rate
	2020-21	2021-22
English 9	16	11
Physical Science	16	12
Algebra I	21	16
Health and Wellness	7	5
Civics (0.5 credit)	9	6
Personal Fitness for Life	3	3
Economics with Personal Finance	11	8
Visual Art Foundations	16	9
Survey of Business	19	11
Spanish I	16	N/A*
Athletics (0.5 credit)	N/A*	0

Although failure rates decreased between 2020-21 and 2021-2022, we still find a 7 percentage point disparity between students who face economic disadvantages and and their more advantaged peers after controlling for student demographic and programmatic characteristics, student prior academic achievement, and district characteristics. As we shared last week, we didn’t find that most freshman failures could be due to absence policies, so the decreased likelihood that economically disadvantaged freshmen will be successful may be in part due to variations in teacher grading. Surveyed teachers report to value different student behaviors when calculating their final grades; not only is content knowledge valued, but also more subjective components like effort, participation, and hard work.

We hope Arkansas districts will continue with their hard work and address disparities in freshman grades.

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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.