The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 24% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Murrell Taylor Elementary School
Murrell Taylor Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Jacksonville, Arkansas, a city in Pulaski County whose character is in significant part defined by the Little Rock Air Force Base, located inside the city limits. The school belongs to the Jacksonville North Pulaski School District, a district that separated from the Pulaski County Special School District about a decade ago after a voter referendum. The district closed two other elementary schools after the 2023-2024 year and consolidated those students into Jacksonville Elementary School, meaning that Murrell Taylor now functions within a smaller, more streamlined set of elementary campuses in the district.
The school’s enrollment is relatively small for a K-5 building operating in a city of its size. The student body is majority Black, with a smaller but notable portion of White students and a smaller share of Hispanic students. Every single student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that points to a community with concentrated economic need. The school does not report data on students with disabilities or English learners, so there is no way to see those proportions from the available information.
State assessment results from the most recent testing year show that academic proficiency rates are mixed across grades and subjects, and they are generally lower than what many families hope to see. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above varies by grade, with one grade showing a modestly higher result and the other two grades showing results that are relatively low. In English language arts, one grade posts a result near the midpoint for a typical school, while the other two grades show lower rates of proficiency. In science, the pattern is similar, with one grade’s result higher than the other two. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades places it in the top quarter when compared to other districts in Pulaski County. That is a notable position, but because the comparison is across districts, not schools, it reflects the district’s standing, and the school’s individual grade-level figures still contain wide variation and some soft spots. A parent may want to look into how instruction and support are differentiated across the building and what interventions are in place for the grades where performance is weaker.
The school does not offer high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Information on course access, staffing levels, discipline rates, and chronic absenteeism was not available in the data, leaving gaps that make it harder to assess the full learning environment, particularly around student support and school climate. A parent considering the school would likely want to ask the principal or visit the building for details on class sizes, enrichment offerings, and how the school addresses the needs of students who are behind grade level.
Housing in the area is priced below the state and national averages, and rents are also below the national norm. The combination of relatively affordable housing and the school’s high concentration of low-income families suggests a community where many households are cost-burdened but local home prices remain accessible compared to much of the country. The city itself has seen its population hold roughly steady or shrink slightly in recent years, and a major tornado cut through Jacksonville in early 2023, damaging a large portion of the city. The recent closure of the local hospital’s emergency room and surgical unit has reduced local medical infrastructure, another factor for families weighing the area’s longer-term stability.
Murrell Taylor is a neighborhood elementary school in a military-adjacent, mid-sized Arkansas city, serving a student body with near-universal economic need. Its test results are uneven, and the available data does not provide a full picture of the support systems in place. A family considering this school would be wise to visit and ask direct questions about academic intervention, enrichment, and how the school has adapted to the district’s recent elementary consolidation.
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