Private schools rarely publish hard numbers. Arkansas's Education Freedom Account changed that, at least for schools that participate. Each fall, the state's annual EFA report lists every participating school with its EFA enrollment, the share of EFA students who came back the next year, and EFA students' average national test percentiles. For Northwest Arkansas families comparing a dozen good options, that's valuable information, as long as you read it carefully.
Number 1: EFA share
This is the share of a school's students who used an account. In NWA it ranged widely in 2024-25: from about 20% at Thaden School and 21% at The New School to 67% at First Academy in Rogers and 83% at Clover Community School.
What it tells you: how practiced the school is with ClassWallet billing, and roughly how its families pay. A school with a high share almost certainly invoices the account directly each quarter.
What it doesn't: quality. A low share at a high-tuition school often just means many of its families were paying full tuition before the account existed.
Number 2: retention
The report shows two retention figures. One is the share of a school's EFA students who were still in the EFA program the next year. The other, more useful one is the share still at the same school.
NWA's strongest same-school retention among schools with at least 40 EFA students:
- Shiloh Christian School: 94%
- Anthem Classical Academy: 94%
- St. Vincent de Paul: 93%
- Life Way Christian School: 92%
- St. Joseph Catholic School (Fayetteville): 92%
- Providence Classical: 91%
- Fayetteville Christian School: 91%
How to read it: graduates count as leaving. A K-12 school like Shiloh or Providence loses only its seniors each year. A school that ends at grade 4 or 5 loses a whole grade. So compare retention among schools with similar grade spans, not across the board. Walnut Farm Montessori (69%) and The Hill School (74%) both end in the early elementary grades, which explains part of their lower figures.
Number 3: test percentiles
Every participating school gives a nationally norm-referenced test each year, such as NWEA MAP, the Iowa Test or the Stanford 10. The report shows the average national percentile of each school's EFA students, where 50 is the national median. Statewide, EFA students averaged the 57th percentile in math and the 59th in reading.
In NWA, the highest averages among schools with a meaningful number of EFA students were Thaden (78th math, 82nd reading), Anthem Classical (76th, 79th), First Academy (75th, 86th) and St. Vincent de Paul (70th, 69th). The New School, Life Way Christian and St. Joseph were in the mid-60s.
Four cautions:
- These are averages for EFA students only, not the whole school.
- Schools use different tests, so a 70 on one isn't exactly a 70 on another.
- Small groups swing. Wisdom and Truth Classical Academy's very high percentiles come from 4 EFA students.
- Specialized schools serve different students. The Grace School at Children's ABA T.E.A.M. is built around applied behavior analysis services, and its low percentiles reflect the students it serves, not the quality of its program.
Number 4: EFA spending
The report's appendix lists how much families paid each school from accounts in the spring transactions it covers. Shiloh Christian received about $1.59 million, Life Way about $743,000 and Providence about $714,000. Those figures mostly mirror EFA enrollment, but they're a useful check that a school is fully set up with ClassWallet.
Putting it together on a tour
Use the numbers to ask better questions, not to rank schools:
- "Your retention for EFA families was X%. What did you hear from the families who left?"
- "Which national test do you use, and will you share my child's results each year?"
- "How do you invoice ClassWallet, and which fees can come from the account?"
What the numbers leave out
The state report covers EFA students only, and it doesn't include tuition, class size, teacher turnover or anything about culture. The federal Private School Survey fills in a little: total enrollment, number of teachers and student-teacher ratio for schools that respond. Each school page in our directory includes those figures where they exist. For everything else, you'll need to ask.
A short list of questions that fill the gaps:
- What's the average class size in my child's grade, and how many teachers left last year?
- What's the full annual cost, including fees, and how much is typically covered by the account?
- What support do you offer for students who are ahead, or behind?
An example comparison
Take two Rogers schools on the same street. In 2024-25, St. Vincent de Paul (PK-8) had 162 EFA students, kept 93% of them, and its EFA students averaged near the 70th percentile. Providence Classical (K-12) had 224 EFA students, kept 91%, and averaged the 58th in math and the 54th in reading. Those numbers don't tell you which school is better. They tell you that both keep their families and both bill ClassWallet routinely. The real decision is grade span, Catholic or classical, and which classroom fits your child.
Our comparison table puts every NWA participating school's numbers in one sortable list, and each school's page in the directory explains its figures in context.