| News | ||
| 3 Charter Schools Won't Fly | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education on Tuesday denied three applications for new charter schools, bringing to six the total number of charter plans rejected this week. | ||
| 11/11/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Rose City Teacher Wins Excellence Prize | ||
| Marquvise Curruth called it the minute Gov. Mike Beebe announced that an unnamed Rose City Middle School teacher would receive a prestigious national teaching award - and the $25,000prize that comes with it. | ||
| 11/11/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| School Board Examines Population Growth | ||
| Springdale may need a new elementary school by 2012 if the district continues to gain students, Springdale School Board members were told in a meeting Tuesday. | ||
| 11/11/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Researchers Probe Pay Incentives for Teachers | ||
| While much of the national debate over performance incentives for teachers has centered on bonuses based on student test scores, a new book suggests that such incentives come in all shapes and sizes, and offers some new research on little-studied aspects of those strategies. | ||
| 11/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| Survey Finds 'Gen Y' Teachers Open to Merit Pay | ||
| A new analysis of national survey data suggests that younger teachers may be slightly more open to merit-pay plans than their older counterparts. The report, released by Public Agenda and Learning Points Associates, focuses on "Generation Y" teachers - those who are 32 or younger. | ||
| 11/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| 2009 Milken Family Foundation National Educator | ||
| Middle school mathematics teacher Telisa Hadley was greeted with cheers when she was honored as a 2009 Milken Family Foundation National Educator during a surprise assembly at Rose City Middle School. | ||
| 11/10/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| State Board Votes Against Proposed Prism Education Center | ||
| The proposed Prism Education Center charter school did not get a green light from the Arkansas State Board of Education Monday. The board voted 5-2 to reject the proposal, which was formally opposed by the Fayetteville School District, during a meeting in Little Rock. | ||
| 11/10/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Charter School's Blytheville Add-On Wins OK | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved plans for expanding the existing KIPP charter school system into Blytheville. During a seven-hour meeting that stretched into the evening, the board rejected charter schools for Fayetteville, Springdale and West Memphis, saying the schools weren't unique enough. | ||
| 11/10/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Officials to Talk Charter Schools | ||
| The Springdale School Board has postponed an all-day work session on Tuesday because some board members will be attending today's Arkansas State Board of Education meeting to speak against a proposed charter school. | ||
| 11/09/2009 | Northwest Arkansas News | |
| Some Arkansas Schools to Get Career Coaches | ||
| Forty-three "career coaches" will be placed in Arkansas high schools in January to offer additional career guidance to students, Gov. Mike Beebe announced today. | ||
| 11/09/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Ark. Program to Provide Career Coaches for Schools | ||
| Forty-three "career coaches" will be placed in high schools around Arkansas next year to help students chart their college and career goals, state officials announced Monday. | ||
| 11/09/2009 | Associated Press | |
| Education Board May Seek A.G.'s Opinion on Charter School Application | ||
| The state Board of Education said today it may seek an attorney general's opinion on whether approving a new open-enrollment charter school in Little Rock would affect long-running desegregation litigation involving three Pulaski County school districts. | ||
| 11/09/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Application Requirements for Final $11.5 Billion in State Fiscal Stabilization Funds Available Now | ||
| Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that application requirements for the final $11.5 billion in State Fiscal Stabilization Funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 are now available. In exchange for this unprecedented funding boost, the department is asking states to provide some basic information on teacher distribution, the collection and use of data, standards and assessments, and support for struggling schools. | ||
| 11/09/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year | ||
| Vandy Nash of North Little Rock was named the 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year during an awards gala at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock. Nash, a fourth-grade teacher at Indian Hills Elementary School in the North Little Rock School District, received a $15,000 cash award with the title. She will also represent Arkansas in the 2010 National Teacher of the Year competition and spend the 2010-2011 school year working in-residence at the Arkansas Department of Education. | ||
| 11/06/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| School Board Offers its Aid Exit | ||
| The Little Rock School Board on Thursday voted 6-0 to seek a $430 million phase-out of state desegregation funding over seven years, a counterproposal to the state attorney general's $396 million proposal last August. | ||
| 11/06/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Bill Would Replace Key Federal Literacy Programs | ||
| Long-awaited legislation to replace three federal reading programs - Early Reading First, Reading First, and Striving Readers - was introduced Nov. 5 by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and would authorize $2.35 billion in funding to improve reading and writing in kindergarten to 12th grade. | ||
| 11/06/2009 | Education Week | |
| National Panel Urges Upgrades to Teacher Workforce | ||
| The Pulaski County Special School District will combine $20 million from its building fund with the $81 million from the issue of second-lien bonds to pay for a new high school in Maumelle and a middle school in Sherwood, putting the combined cost at over $100 million. | ||
| 11/04/2009 | Education Week | |
| Fayetteville High School Price Not Right | ||
| A $113 million price tag to build a new high school was the overriding reason patrons voted the proposal down in September, according to results of a postcard survey conducted by the Fayetteville School Board. | ||
| 11/04/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Charter School Board Eyes Election Policy | ||
| The Benton County School of the Arts board will spend its next meetings creating a new process for selecting board members, board members said Tuesday. | ||
| 11/04/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Repeal of School Reform Law Rejected in Maine | ||
| Maine voters have rejected a move to repeal the state's school district consolidation law - and they did so in convincing fashion. With 87 percent of the state's precincts reporting early Wednesday morning, the vote was 284,117 to 201,203 - or 58.5 percent to 41.5 percent - against repealing the law. | ||
| 11/04/2009 | Bangor Daily News | |
| Beebe Appoints 13 to Boards, Commissions | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, to the Southern Regional Education Board. Roebuck, who teaches at Henderson State University, replaces former state Education Commissioner Ken James, who resigned over the summer. Her term on the board expires June 30, 2013. The appointment was one of 13 the governor made to state boards and commissions. | ||
| 11/03/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| $100 Million Plan OK'd by County District Board | ||
| The Pulaski County Special School District will combine $20 million from its building fund with the $81 million from the issue of second-lien bonds to pay for a new high school in Maumelle and a middle school in Sherwood, putting the combined cost at over $100 million. | ||
| 11/03/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Conflict of Interest Arises As Concern in Standard Push | ||
| A respected literacy-research organization is asking that a process be put in place to make more transparent potential conflicts of interest that writers of the common national academic standards might have, and to address them. | ||
| 11/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Teachers' Trainers Must Make the Grade, Too | ||
| Texas is among the first states to toughen its standards for colleges of education and other teacher-training programs amid criticism that too many are "cash cows" that produce weak instructors. | ||
| 11/02/2009 | Houston Chronicle | |
| Study Says Education Bar Too Low | ||
| Arkansas' Benchmark Exams in fourth- and eighth-grade math and literacy rank in the top half of the nation in difficulty compared with other states' tests, a new federal study shows. | ||
| 10/30/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| NCES Finds States Lowered 'Proficiency' Bar | ||
| With 2014 approaching as the deadline by which states must get their all their students up to "proficient" levels on state tests, the U.S. Department of Education's top statistics agency released data today suggesting that some states may have lowered student-proficiency standards on such tests in recent years. | ||
| 10/29/2009 | Education Week | |
| District Approves Charter Proposal | ||
| In what had been billed as a major speech on teacher education, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week reiterated concerns about the quality of the schools that produce a majority of the nation's teachers. | ||
| 10/26/2009 | Education Week | |
| Clearinghouse Finds Evidence Reading Program Works | ||
| A review by the federal What Works Clearinghouse of an intervention for adolescent literacy finds that a popular computerized reading program has "potentially positive effects" on student achievement. | ||
| 10/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Teacher Contract Called Potential Model for Nation | ||
| A teacher contract approved in New Haven that lays the groundwork for changes to the way teachers in the Connecticut city are paid, supported, and evaluated, has been hailed by union and district leaders alike-as well as federal education officials-as a potential model for the country. | ||
| 10/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Colorado Supreme Court Gives Go-Ahead to Schools Funding Trial | ||
| In an opinion that could eventually have profound implications for the state budget, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a challenge to whether the state spends enough on public schools can go forward. | ||
| 10/20/2009 | The Denver Post | |
| The Case for Special Education Vouchers | ||
| The big battles over school vouchers in American education have focused on programs serving low-income children who live in urban areas. Four states - Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Utah - have special education voucher programs that together serve more than 22,000 students. | ||
| 10/19/2009 | Education Next | |
| Experts, Public to Weigh in on Common Tests | ||
| As 48 states charge ahead with plans to adopt common academic standards, the U.S. Department of Education will enlist experts and the public to help design a $350 million competition for the next step: the development of common tests. | ||
| 10/20/2009 | Education Week | |
| State of Mind | ||
| Two out of five of America's 4 million K-12 teachers appear disheartened and disappointed about their jobs, while others express a variety of reasons for contentment with teaching and their current school environments, new research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates shows. | ||
| 10/19/2009 | Education Week | |
| ACT: Arkansas Students Unprepared for Degree-Required Jobs | ||
| Arkansas' most recent high school graduates largely aren't interested in the jobs likely to be available to them, nor are they academically prepared for those jobs, a survey of 2009 grads indicates. | ||
| 10/15/2009 | Arkansas Business Online | |
| Students Held Back Did Better | ||
| A long-awaited study analyzing the Bloomberg administration's student-promotion policy says that fifth graders who were held back did better in subsequent years, and that specialized instruction for struggling students showed moderate success. | ||
| 10/15/2009 | The New York Times | |
| NAEP Math Scores Idle at 4th Grade, Advance at 8th | ||
| After marching steadily upward for the past two decades, students' scores in 4th grade mathematics have stagnated on a prominent nationwide exam. That result seems likely to prompt calls for an inspection of state and federal efforts to boost elementary instruction in the subject. Scores among 8th graders on the exam, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, continued to rise, meanwhile a fairly consistent trend since the early 1990s. | ||
| 10/14/2009 | Education Week | |
| Graduation Rates Rise in South, Study Finds | ||
| Reversing a downward trend, high school graduation rates in most Southern states have climbed this decade, with Tennessee leading the pack in growth, according to a report out from the Southern Regional Education Board. | ||
| 10/14/2009 | Education Week | |
| National Assessment of Educational Progress Math 2009 | ||
| Arkansas' fourth- and eighth-grade public school students maintained the gains students in those grades have made on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics exam in recent years, according to results released by the National Assessment Governing Board and teh U.S. Department of Education. | ||
| 10/14/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Additional Elementary School May be Needed, Superintendent Says | ||
| Superintendent Jim Rollins discussed the possible need for an additional elementary school in 2011 during the Springdale School Board on Tuesday night. The school district grew by 759 students this year, said Allen Williams, assistant superintendent for finance. That gives the school district 18,188 students. | ||
| 10/13/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Higher Ed Department Announces Teacher Improvement Grant Program | ||
| The Arkansas Department of Higher Education announced Tuesday that it has received $720,000 from the U.S. Department of Education that it will disburse in the form of grants to colleges and universities to help improve teaching skills among elementary and secondary teachers. | ||
| 10/14/2009 | Arkansas Business | |
| Teacher Benefit from Job-Saving Stimulus Spending | ||
| Teachers appear to have benefited most from the effort to save jobs with the $787 billion recovery package, which sent billions of dollars to states that were on the verge of ordering heavy layoffs in education. | ||
| 10/13/2009 | The Boston Globe | |
| 8 Districts Exit Fiscal Distress | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education on Monday removed eight school districts from its fiscal distress program after the school systems took steps to replenish what had been rapidly dwindling financial reserves. | ||
| 10/13/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| List of Schools Needing Academic Improvement Grows | ||
| The number of Arkansas schools failing to meet minimum standards under the federal No Child Left Behind Act continued to increase last year, the state Department of Education reported today. | ||
| 10/09/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| First-Year Lottery Take Predicted | ||
| Arkansas' fledgling lottery would raise an estimated $102.3 million for college scholarships based on $400 million in ticket sales in its first year under a preliminary budget proposal unveiled Wednesday by the lottery's executive director. | ||
| 10/08/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Common Core Standards Earn a B from Think Tank | ||
| A draft of the multistate, "Common Core" standards earned a B grade in both language arts and math from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a higher mark than those given to some prominent national and international standards documents. | ||
| 10/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Charter School Researchers Spar Over Analyses | ||
| The authors of a recent national study that found students in regular public schools outperforming their charter school peers are rebutting criticism that their research suffered from a "serious mathematical mistake" that negatively skewed the results. | ||
| 10/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Arkansas Teacher of the Year Finalists Announced | ||
| Fifteen public school teachers from across the state have been selected as finalists for the 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year. All finalists will be recognized November 6 at the state's first Arkansas Teacher of the Year Gala, during which the winner and runner-up will be announced. | ||
| 10/02/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Says Rewrite of No Child Left Behind Must Start Now | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that the $24.8 billion in federal funds available annually to the nation's schools should support reforms that prepare students for success in college and careers. | ||
| 09/24/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Attorney General and Education Secretary Call for National Conversation on Values and Student Violence | ||
| Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan today joined with Chicago city officials to call for a national conversation on values to address youth violence in the wake of the fatal beating of a Chicago high school student. | ||
| 10/07/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Schools Brace For Flu Clinics | ||
| The Arkansas Department of Health is gearing up to offer the seasonal vaccine to every person in the state. The massive inoculation program has two phases: mass clinics for residents and school clinics for students. | ||
| 10/06/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Focus in Chicago: Students at Risk of Violence | ||
| The new chief officer of the public schools here, Ron Huberman, a former police officer and transit executive with a passion for data analysis, has a plan to stop the killings of the city's public school students. And it does not have to do with guns or security guards. It has to do with statistics and probability. | ||
| 10/06/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Education Agency Will Offer Grants for Innovative Ideas | ||
| The federal Department of Education sketched out a new nationwide competition on Tuesday under which some 2,700 school districts and nonprofit groups are expected to compete for pieces of a $650 million innovation fund. | ||
| 10/06/2009 | The New York Times | |
| States Face Budget Hurdles on Testing, GAO Says | ||
| Congress' investigative arm is spotlighting the challenges states face with their testing systems, from recession-driven budget pressures to ensuring the validity and reliability of statewide studetn assessments. | ||
| 10/06/2009 | Education Week | |
| Tight Focus on Instruction Wins Texas District Prize | ||
| It took a while for four-time finalist Aldine, Texas, to win the Braod Prize for Urban Education. But it took even longer to craft the system that ultimately put the district over the top. | ||
| 10/05/2009 | Education Week | |
| Springdale Teacher Finalist For State Award | ||
| A Springdale teacher has been named as a finalist for the 2010 Arkansas Teacher of the Year award. | ||
| 10/02/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Lottery Day 1 'Very Smooth' Director Says | ||
| Arkansas became the 43rd state to sell lottery tickets Monday, with players ranging from college students to college presidents joining in on the gambling, which is aimed at paying for scholarships. It was "a very smooth start-up," said Ernie Passailaigue, executive director of the Arkansas Lottery Commission.. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Study: Charter Schools Aid Desegregation | ||
| Open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County are helping rather than hindering racial desegregation efforts in traditional public schools, concludes a new study by researchers at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Cash for Learning Linked to Economy | ||
| Arkansas needs to continue to grow its publicly funded pre-kindergarten programs, Gov. Mike Beebe said Monday. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lottery's First-Day Sales Exceed $1.2 Million | ||
| Ticket sales on the first day of Arkansas' new state-run lottery totaled more than $1.2 million, the lottery's director said today. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Demand Soars for Stimulus-Backed Facilities Bonds | ||
| Construction bonding authority - a technical, and often obscure, source of capital funding for school districts - has emerged as a hot ticket for those looking to finance school facilities work under the federal government's economic-stimulus program. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Education Week | |
| Arkansas History Teacher of the Year Announced | ||
| Vicki Stroud Gonterman, an international studies specialist with Little Rock's Gibbs Magnet School of International Studies and Foreign Languages, has been named Arkansas History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Preserve America. | ||
| 09/29/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| More School: Obama Would Curtail Summer Vacation | ||
| Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way. | ||
| 09/28/2009 | Education Week | |
| A Queens Schools Copes With Crowding That's a Sign of Success | ||
| At Francis Lewis in Fresh Meadows, Queens, which has nearly twice as many students as the 2,400 it was designed for, administrators have been forced to look for every possible nook of space and cranny of time to cram in more bodies. | ||
| 09/28/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Education Committee Taken for a Ride | ||
| While President Obama may be attending an important summit meeting in Pittsburgh this week, Arkansas legislators attended a real summit meeting, atop Iceledo Mountain in Newton County. | ||
| 09/26/2009 | Harrison Daily | |
| Report Says GF Middle School 'beat odds' in Ranking | ||
| Andrea Martin, principal of the elementary and intermediate schools, shared a report from the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. The Outstanding Educational Performance Awards listed the schools in Arkansas with the highest percentage of students scoring either proficient or advanced on benchmark tests. | ||
| 09/25/2009 | Carroll County News | |
| Secretary Duncan Says Rewrite of 'No Child Left Behind' Should Start Now; Reauthorization Can't Wait | ||
| Duncan said that the NCLB law has significant flaws and that he looks forward to working with Congress to address the law's problems. He said the law puts too much emphasis on standardized tests, unfairly labels many schools as failures, and doesn't account for students' academic growth in its accountability system. | ||
| 12/31/1969 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Algebra II End-of-Course Exam Performance | ||
| Arkansas middle schools and high schools will begin distributing reports this week to students concerning their performance on the administation of the Algebra II end-of-course exam last spring. Arkansas was one of 15 states in the America Diploma Project (ADP) to offer the exam, and one of only three states that required all Algebra II students to take it. While the Algebra II exam was first administered in 2008, this is the first year the cut scores were devised so that exam results could be reported in "performance level" categories. | ||
| 09/22/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Md. Says Graduation Stats Prove Exit Exams Work | ||
| Only 11 of more than 60,000 Maryland high school seniors did not graduate last spring solely because they failed the state's new required exit exams. Some are asking how tough the tests could be if only a tiny percentage of the students fail. More than 2,000 other students fell short of graduating because they did not meet districts' graduation standards or failed both the state and the local requirements. An additional 1,500 who did not graduate either were not required to pass the exam or had started school before the exam was mandated. | ||
| 09/22/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| Study Shows Better Scores for Charter School Students | ||
| Students who entered lotteries and won spots in New York City charter schools performed better on state exams than students who entered the same lotteries but did not secure charter school seats, according to a study by a Stanford University economist. | ||
| 09/22/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Latest Challenge in 'Race to Top': Find Review Team for Applicants | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education is seeking 50 to 80 outside judges to help award $4 billion in Race to the Top Fund grants under the economic-stimulus program - job openings that demand both education policy expertise and a detached interest in the high-stakes education reform competition. | ||
| 09/22/2009 | Education Week | |
| Education Chief Faces Challenges in Job | ||
| Tom Kimbrell takes over as Arkansas' education chief without the cloud of a years-long fight over school funding. That doesn't mean his job is going to be any easier. | ||
| 09/21/2009 | Baxter Bulletin | |
| Student-to-College 'Mismatch' Seen as Graduation Rate Issue | ||
| An important new book on improving the stagnant graduation rates of the nation's public colleges and universities suggests that one reason so many academically talented students leave college without a diploma may be that they enroll in schools for which they are overqualified. | ||
| 09/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Revised Draft of 'Common core' Standards Unveiled | ||
| A revamped draft of proposed common academic standards for states offers more detailed expectation than an earlier version, though the document also says that some decisions about specific curricula and lessons should be left to individual states and schools. | ||
| 09/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Initiative Focuses on Early Learning Programs | ||
| Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5. | ||
| 09/19/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Arizona State University Creates K-12 Charter Schools | ||
| Arizona State University has opened two charter schools and plans to establish two more in the coming years. University leaders say the enterprise makes sense for plenty of reasons, ranging from a strong alignment with its research agenda to a desire to help students be better prepared for higher education. | ||
| 09/18/2009 | The Arizona Republic | |
| Ohio Identifies Voucher Candidates | ||
| About 88,700 Ohio children, including more than 15,000 in Cincinnati, are eligible to receive tax-paid tuition at private schools in the next school year. | ||
| 09/17/2009 | Cincinnati Inquirer | |
| Millage Defeated: Nearly 6,000 Vote Against Millage Hike for New Fayetteville High | ||
| School district voters rejected a proposal to build a new high school in Fayetteville on Tuesday, voting down a proposed 4.9-mill property tax increase to fund the project. | ||
| 09/16/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Greenland Schools Put Literacy in Their Sights | ||
| The Greenland School District is planning a districtwide approach toward improved literacy among students. | ||
| 09/16/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| School Millage Results | ||
| Following are the unofficial results of school districts' proposed changes in their millage rates in Tuesday's school elections across the state. | ||
| 09/16/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Hunt for Undue Teacher Pensions | ||
| The director of the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System said Tuesday that he is suspending efforts to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from retirees who failed to report that they had returned to work, while he considers whether the effort should go forward. | ||
| 09/16/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Schools Director Sets His Agenda | ||
| Dr. Tom Kimbrell will start his job as the new Arkansas Education Commissioner on September 28. He spoke at the Cabot Rotary Club about Arkansas school history and his plan as Commissioner. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | The Leader | |
| Time For Plan B | ||
| Fayetteville School District officials will start over with the issue of replacing the high school after voters Tuesday rejected a millage increase to pay for a new one. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Education Secretary Arne Duncan Designates 314 Schools as 2009 Blue Ribbon Schools | ||
| U.S. Secreatry of Education Arne Duncan announced 314 schools as 2009 National Blue Ribbon Schools. The award honors public and private schools that are either academically superior, or have made dramatic gains in student achievement and helped close gaps in achievment among minority and disadvantaged students. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| 1st Load of Lottery Tickets Arrives | ||
| Four trucks delivered about 26 million Arkansas lottery tickets to a lottery vendor's warehouse in west Little Rock on Monday, the latest milestone for the fledging venture. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Kimbrell Picked to Oversee Schools | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education voted 7-0 on Monday morning to employ Tom Kimbrell of Cabot as the state's education commissioner. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Today's the Day Voters Have Say on State's Schools | ||
| Today is election day in Arkansas' 244 public school districts, including the North Little Rock School District where voters will choose between incumbent Margaret "Margo" Tenner and newcomer Scott Miller to represent the downtown section of the city. Taxpayers in 10 Arkansas school districts are seeking voter approval of changes in their tax rates or in how the revenue from their current tax rates will be used. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Vote Today: Voters Cast Ballots for Millage | ||
| The district is asking voters to approve a property tax increase of 4.9 mills to fund the construction of a new high school. The district-only tax levy is already 42.9 mills, so if approved, the rate will increase to 47.8 mills. | ||
| 09/15/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Charter Schools Group Sets High Goal | ||
| The South Carolina Association of Public Charter Schools hopes to enroll 10% of public school students within the next five years. It's an ambitious goal, considering that would be about 70,000 students in charters when only 9,000 students are enrolled in those schools this year. The association plans to launch an Institute of Charter School Excellence that will provide training for prospective charter schools, as well as those with approved applications. | ||
| 09/14/2009 | Charleston Post and Courier | |
| Schools Look Abroad to Hire Teachers | ||
| Some American school districts have turned increasingly to overseas recruiting to find teachers willing to work in their hard-to-staff schools, according to a new report by a national teacher's union. | ||
| 09/14/2009 | The New York Times | |
| New State Education Commissioner Hired | ||
| The state Board of Education today voted unanimously to hire Tom Kimbrell of Cabot as state education commissioner. | ||
| 09/14/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| New Rules Unfair to Prison Teachers | ||
| The state Board of Education today tabled proposed rules for the licensing of school administrators after the superintendent of the Arkansas Correctional School complained that the rules would be unfair to prison teachers. | ||
| 09/14/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Bentonville School District Approves Flat Budget | ||
| The 2009-10 Bentonville School District budget is nearly flat when compared to the 2008-09 budget. Sterling Ming, executive director of finance for the district, walked board members through the proposed budget Monday night. | ||
| 09/14/2009 | The Morning News | |
| TFA Strives for Continuous Teacher Development | ||
| Long criticized for the short duration of its training, Teach for America has invested heavily in the professional development of its teacher corps. | ||
| 09/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| Kimbrell Beebe's Choice to Head Ed Department | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe today recommended Tom Kimbrell of Cabot, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, to be head of the state Department of Education. | ||
| 09/11/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Evidence is Limited on Charters' Effect on ELL Achievement | ||
| The question of whether charter schools do a good job of educating English-language learners is being debated in Massachusetts, as legislators consider two proposals that would expand the number of such schools. | ||
| 09/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| Swine-Flu Preparations Spur E-Learning Plans | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education takes steps using innovative technology to prepare for possible outbreaks of swine flu amoung students, teachers, and other faculty members. | ||
| 09/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Harkin New Chair of Senate Education | ||
| U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa today stepped into the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which was left vacant when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died last month. | ||
| 09/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| County Schools to All Have Nurses | ||
| The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District approved a $230 million budget Tuesday night that, despite a drop in state funding, includes money to place a registered nurse at each of the district's 36 schools. | ||
| 09/09/2009 | Arkansas Deomcrat Gazette | |
| Springdale Seeks to Convert Center to Charter High School | ||
| The Springdale School District hopes to delve into the world of charter schools by converting the Springdale Alternative Learning Center to the Springdale Charter High School. | ||
| 12/31/1969 | The Morning News | |
| ELL Graduation Rates Often a Mysterys | ||
| ’t even tracking the rate for the fastest-growing population of students, or if they are, they aren't telling the public how many English-language learners are leaving school with a diploma. | ||
| 09/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Work Hard - No Excuses - Obama Tells Nation's Students | ||
| President Obama urged America's K-12 students to study hard and stay in school, saying, "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country." | ||
| 09/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Sticker Shock: District Seeks to Explain Price of Proposed High School | ||
| The question seems to arise when Fayetteville school patrons get together these days: How did Springdale manage to build Har-Ber High School for $38 million and Rogers build Heritage High for $42 million, but Fayetteville says it needs $113 million for a new high school.. | ||
| 09/05/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Eight Organizations to Open Charter Schools | ||
| Eight nonprofit organizations are seeking approval to open new charter schools in Arkansas in the 2010-2011 school year. | ||
| 09/04/2009 | WXVT - AP | |
| Recovery Act Funds Accelerated to Save Jobs, Drive Reforms in Schools with Students in Greatest Need | ||
| More than eleven billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to simultaneously save jobs and make improvements to schools across the nation, especially those in high poverty districts. | ||
| 09/04/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Panelists: New High School Means More Appealing Citys | ||
| A panel of six gathered at East Square Plaza to discuss a new and improved Fayetteville High school to better compete with schools in Bentonville and Rogers. | ||
| 09/04/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| School Upgrades Technology: 'Need to Succeed' | ||
| With help from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Russellville high School embraces its new modren and technologically advanced high school building with even more improvements to come in the near future. | ||
| 09/03/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Proposed 'Race to Top' Rules Seen as Prescriptive | ||
| Arne duncan, Secretary of Education, recieves backlash over 'race to top' criteria viewed by many, such as the National Education Association, as being too rigid. The Department of Education works to compromise without sacrificing its main goals. | ||
| 09/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| Multi-City Study Eyes Best Gauges of Good Teaching | ||
| The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will embark this fall on an ambitious research effort to analyze-and provide some initial answers to-a perennially vexing question in education: What are the best indicators of excellent teaching? | ||
| 09/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Top-Notch Teachers Found to Affect Peers | ||
| Teachers raise their games when the quality of their colleagues improves, according to a new study offering some of the first evidence to document a "spillover effect" in teaching. | ||
| 09/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| Experts Advise New LR Literacy Strategy | ||
| Consultants to the Little Rock School District on Monday suggested replacing the reading and language arts program in elementary and middle schools. | ||
| 09/01/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| California Actions on 'Race to the Top' Scrutinized | ||
| Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to call a special session to better position California for Race to the Top funds may be the highest-profile test yet of whether proposed federal requirements for the coveted grants are likely to significantly reshape state policy. | ||
| 08/31/2009 | Education Week | |
| The Persuadable Public | ||
| What do Americans think about their schools? More important, perhaps, what would it take to change their minds? Can a president at the peak of his popularity convince people to rethink their positions on specific education reforms? Might research findings do so? And when do new facts have the potential to alter public thinking? Answers to these questions can be gleaned from surveys conducted over the past three years under the auspices of Education Next and Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG). | ||
| 08/31/2009 | Education Next | |
| Views: Camps Disagree on Way to Fix Public Schools | ||
| The current public-school debate can be roughly divided into two camps. On one side: those who say investing in America's public-school system will improve student achievement. On the other side: those who have lost faith in the public-school system and believe investing in competition and privately operated schools is the best way to improve student achievement. | ||
| 08/30/2009 | The Arizona Republic | |
| School Ties | ||
| The amount of money schools spend on construction does not have a measurable effect on student achievement, according to one study by an education researcher. | ||
| 08/29/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like | ||
| “Mockingbird” - or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb. | ||
| 08/29/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Rural Areas Perceive Policy Tilt | ||
| Rural school advocates say the federal priorities emerging under Mr. Duncan-a former chief executive officer of the 408,000-student Chicago public school system-favor education improvement ideas that are best suited to urban settings. | ||
| 08/28/2009 | Education Week | |
| LR Schools Will Wait to Judge State's Aid-Cutoff Plan | ||
| The Little Rock School Board is holding off a response to the state's settlement offer in the long-running desegregation lawsuit until it can calculate the impact on the school district's long-term finances and its school-choice programs. | ||
| 08/28/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Beach Reading for Mr. Obama | ||
| President Obama reportedly has a hefty reading list while vacationing this week, but we would like to offer two additions, both hot off the presses. One is an article by the education expert who studied the D.C. voucher program; the second is a study on school safety in the city's public and private schools. Read together, they might cause the president to rethink his administration's wrong-headed decision to shut down the voucher program to new students. | ||
| 08/28/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| Blytheville Wins KIPP Bid for Next Charter Site | ||
| A nationally known charter-school network hopes to expand in the Arkansas Delta by opening a new branch in Blytheville in 2010. | ||
| 08/27/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| International Lessons about National Standards | ||
| Whether the United States should embrace national standards and tets for its schools is perhaps today's hottest education issue. For guidance in addressing it, the newest Fordham report looks beyond our borders. How have other countries navigated these turbid waters? | ||
| 08/27/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Ed. Dept. Seeks Stiff Conditions on Turnaround Aid | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that he plans to demand radical steps - such as firing most of a school's staff or its conversion to a charter school - as the price of admission in directing $3.5 billion in new school improvement aid to the nation's 5,000 worst-perforing schools. | ||
| 08/26/2009 | Education Week | |
| STEM Talen Increases, Jobs Decrease | ||
| Across the nation, alternative-route program officials say they are seeing increasing enrollments from career-changers with strong backgrounds in the highly sought-after fields of math, science, and technology. | ||
| 08/26/2009 | Education Week | |
| Duncan Sets Bar on Fund | ||
| Federal education officials last week pledged that the economic-stimulus program's $650 million innovation fund will reserve the largest grants for schools, districts, and nonprofit organizations that want to finance programs with proven track records and are ready to grow. | ||
| 08/25/2009 | Education Week | |
| NEA at Odds with Obama Team Over 'Race to the Top' Criteria | ||
| After emphasizing its agreement with President Barack Obama's education reform agenda for more than half of his first year in office, the National Education Association has finally taken to the offensive, formally announcing its opposition to core elements of the Obama administration's proposed guidelines for the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program. | ||
| 08/25/2009 | Education Week | |
| Number of Students Taking AP Courses Increases | ||
| Arkansas, oft-cited as a national model for providing public school students with access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses, saw another increase in the number of public school students taking AP examinations in the 2008-2009 school year as well as an overall better performance on those tests, the College Board announced today. Those trends were most pronounced in African-American and Hispanic student populations. | ||
| 08/25/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| American Recovery and Reinvesment Act Grants in Arkansas | ||
| Fourteen school districts in the state have received American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants ranging from $33,000 to $68,000 to aid in serving students who are homeless. These districts will be serving around 2700 students. | ||
| 08/24/2009 | Recover.Arkansas.Gov | |
| Districts Receive Stimulus Money to Aid Homeless Students | ||
| Fourteen Arkansas school districts have received federal stimulus money to aid in serving students who are homeless, the state Department of Education announced today. | ||
| 08/24/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Texas Takes Another Stab at Teacher Merit Pay | ||
| After striking out in its first attempt at teacher merit pay, the legislature is dangling a pot of nearly $200 million to bring out the best in Texas teachers. About one in five districts signed up for the District Awards for Teacher Excellence, or DATE, plan last year. At least 60% of the funds must be used for bonuses based on student performance. Remaining funds can be used as stipends for teachers at hard-to-staff schools or in high-demand subjects, among other options. | ||
| 08/22/2009 | The Dallas Morning News | |
| Interpreting "Race to the Top" | ||
| The New Teacher Project released a brief targeted to education leaders and policymakers interested in pursuing Race to the Top reforms. | ||
| 08/21/2009 | The New Teacher Project | |
| Lost Opportunities | ||
| School choice supporters, including hundreds of private school students in crisp uniforms, filled Washington, D.C.'s Freedom Plaza last May to protest a congressional decision to eliminate the city's federally funded school voucher program after the next school year. | ||
| 08/20/2009 | Education Next | |
| Students in D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program Make Significant Improvements in Reading, U.S. Education Department Study Finds | ||
| The reading effects of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) show the largest achievement impact of any education policy program yet evaluated in a randomized control trial by the U.S. Department of Education and reveal an important trend toward increased reading gains for students the longer they remain in the program, according to the evaluation's principal investigator, Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas. | ||
| 08/20/2009 | Business Wire | |
| 2009 ACT Scores | ||
| Arkansas students in the graduating class of 2009 earned an average 20.6 composite score on the ACT to tie the average score earned the previous year. The showing also maintained the upward trend from 2005 when the state average composite score was 20.3. The maximum possible is 36. | ||
| 08/19/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| State Trails Nation on ACT Score | ||
| A record number of Arkansas high school graduates in 2009 took a college preparatory curriculum, but the class earned an average ACT college entrance test score of 20.6 that remained unchanged from 2008 and below the national average. | ||
| 08/19/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Gates Foudnation Seeks Education's Magic Pill | ||
| Nine years and $2 billion into its work to improve America's public schools, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is truning its focus to teacher effectiveness. | ||
| 08/19/2009 | Associated Press | |
| Arkansas Students' ACT Scores Hold Steady | ||
| For the second year in a row, Arkansas' high school seniors attained an average ACT score of 20.6 this year, trailing the national average of 21.1. | ||
| 08/19/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| ACT Scores Show Most Students Aren't Ready for College | ||
| Fewer than one quarter of last school year's graduating high school seniros who took the ACT scored at the "college-ready" level in all four subject areas, a finding that prompted the natin's highest education official to renew his demand that schools do a far better job preparing students for college. | ||
| 08/19/2009 | Education Week | |
| Federal Money Surge Marks New School Year | ||
| The 2009-10 school year that starts Wednesday will be distinguished by an influx of federal stimulus dollars, tougher graduation standards and the introduction of a high school exit exam. | ||
| 08/18/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Technology Increasing in Siloam Springs Schools | ||
| When students return to class in Siloam Springs, many will have new access to technology, thanks to federal stimiulus funds. | ||
| 08/18/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Arkansas Schools Submit ARRA Plans | ||
| Eighty-five school district plans have been submitted to the Arkansas Department of Education for using the funds provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). | ||
| 08/18/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Teacher Pay Could be Linked to Student Performance, Graduation Rate | ||
| After lifting controls on teacher compensation, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle said he hoped the move would prompt more innovative approaches to paying teachers. | ||
| 08/17/2009 | Journal Sentinel | |
| Texas Braces for Debate on U.S. History Standards | ||
| Texas educators have drafted new K-12 social studies standards for the state, and they - and the state education board members who will vote on them - expect that the U.S. history strand could be contentious. | ||
| 08/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Heavy Lifting Ahead for 'Race to Top' Applications | ||
| States face a daunting task if they want a shot at the $4 billion from the Race to the Top Fund: navigating the complex application process. Merely filling out the application will take each state 642 hours, according to the Department of Education. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has hand-picked 15 states to receive up to $250,000 each to hire consultants to help them fill out their applications - Arkansas is one of the states. | ||
| 08/14/2009 | Education Week | |
| Middle Grades | ||
| A new issue of The Progress of Education Reform highlights key findings from recent research and publications on improving student success in the middle grades - and identifies actions states can take to translate these findings into sound policy. | ||
| 08/12/2009 | Education Commission of the States | |
| Graduating America: Meeting the Challenge of Low Graduation Rate High Schools | ||
| The federal government has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stimulate significant progress in solving the nation's graduation crisis, according to this report from Jobs for the Future and the Everyone Graduates Center. While high schools with low graduation rates exist in every state and many communities across the country, they are concentrated in a subset of 17 states that produce approximately 70 percent of the nation's dropouts. To view the full report: http://www.jff.org/Documents/graduating_america_072209.pdf | ||
| 08/11/2009 | Jobs for the Future | |
| Proposal Would Address Low-Performing Universities | ||
| Michigan could bar some universities from offering teacher preparation programs if those programs consistently post low performance scores, under a proposal the Michigan Board of Education is considering. | ||
| 08/11/2009 | Detroit Free Press | |
| NAEP Draft on Technological Literacy Unveiled | ||
| A discussion draft of the framework for the national assessment of technological literacy, the first to gauge students' understanding of and skill in using a range of tools, has been presented to the board that oversees the testing program. | ||
| 08/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| State Board of Education Notebook | ||
| A Board of Education meeting was held on Monday, August 10. This article highlights some of the topics addressed at the meeting, including bonuses for schools where students improve scores on the Benchmark and incentives to boost Smart Core. | ||
| 08/11/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| 2 LR Schools Lose Fight Over Probation Status | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education denied an appeal from the Little Rock School District, placing hall and J.A. Fair high schools on probation Monday as required by school accreditation standards. | ||
| 08/11/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lottery Startup Will Be Quick, Director Says | ||
| Arkansans will soon see the value of their state lottery and what a small segment executive pay will be, Ernie Passailaigue, state lottery director, said Monday. | ||
| 08/10/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Rich Prize, Restrictive Guidelines | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education's proposed guidelines for awarding $4 billion in Race to the Top Fund money send a strong message that any state hoping to land a competitive grant should expect to allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher compensation and evaluation. | ||
| 08/10/2009 | Education Week | |
| In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History | ||
| Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions - or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web. | ||
| 08/08/2009 | The New York Times | |
| NAEP Panels Propose More ELL, Spec. Ed. Inclusion | ||
| The board that sets policy for the exam known as "the nation's report card" has begun consideration of proposals aimed at setting new, more uniform standards for testing English-language learners and students with disabilities on the widely scrutinized assessment. | ||
| 08/07/2009 | Education Week | |
| 2 LR Schools to Fight Probation Recommendations | ||
| The Little Rock School District is challenging a recommendation by state officials that Hall and J.A. Fair high schools be placed on probation for failing to teach a physics course last year as required by school accreditation standards. Hall and Fair are among 76 schools statewide - including 12 traditional and charter public schools in Pulaski County - recommended for probation, but they are the only two appealing the recommendations. | ||
| 08/05/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Consolidated Charter School Has New Benefits, Board President Says | ||
| Charter schools have been part of the education fabric for a few years, yet many residents still confuse charter and private schools. | ||
| 08/05/2009 | The Morning News | |
| In Program Giving Cash, More Pass A.P. Tests | ||
| A program that offers students up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement exams has shown some success, with more students at 31 city high schools earning passing scores, according to officials in charge of the effort. | ||
| 08/04/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Research Doesn't Offer Much Guidance on Turnarounds | ||
| Ever since U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for turning around 5,000 of the nation's worst-performing schools, the phone has been ringing steadily at the University of Virginia's School Turnaround Specialist Program. Most of the calls are from educators looking for expert advice on how to go about transforming failing schools into success stories. | ||
| 08/04/2009 | Education Week | |
| Charter School Has Growing Pains | ||
| Student enrollment is creating growing pains for the Benton County School of the Arts elementary and middle school. "All of our challenges are based on increasing enrollment. It's a good problem to have," Paul Hines, superintendent told the school board Tuesday night. The other side of the coin is diminishing classroom space, Hines added. | ||
| 08/04/2009 | The Morning News | |
| State Legislatures Wrestle with Charter Laws | ||
| Amid a strong push by the Obama administration to ensure that states don't constrain the growth of the charter school sector, a number of legislatures this year debated measures on how many charters to allow, or whether to have such schools at all. But even with the extra attention from Washington, the outcomes have proved decidedly mixed. | ||
| 08/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| The Latest on States' 'Highly Qualified' Teacher Counts | ||
| ’t constrain the growth of the charter school sector, a number of legislatures this year debated measures on how many charters to allow, or whether to have such schools at all. But even with the extra attention from Washington, the outcomes have proved decidedly mixed. | ||
| 08/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| PB Group Calls for Charter Schools | ||
| Blytheville, West Memphis, and Pine Bluff are vying to get the state's fourth KIPP school, said Steve Mancini, a spokesman for KIPP. A coalition of Pine Bluff residents is lobbying for the free college-preparatory school in the city for the 2010-11 school year. | ||
| 08/03/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Ed. Dept. Gears Up for Innovation Grants | ||
| As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Florida this week to shine a light on innovative education initiatives, his department was preparing to kick-start a $650 million grant competition for school districts that can best execute his vision of school reform. | ||
| 07/31/2009 | Education Week | |
| Business Is Brisk for Teacher Training Alternatives | ||
| The high unemployment rate has provided an unexpected boom for the nation's public schools: legions of career-switchers eager to become teachers. | ||
| 07/31/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| Gov. Pat Quinn Signs Bill Doubling Number of Charter Schools | ||
| A new law that doubles the number of charter schools allowed in Illinois also will give the state an edge in the competition for roughly $5 billion of federal money meant to encourage school reform, Gov. Pat Quinn said as he signed the legislation. | ||
| 07/31/2009 | Chicago Tribune | |
| Senate Panel Rejects Bid to Further Boost TIF | ||
| The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee turned back a bipartisan effort Thursday to increase funding for the Teacher Incentive Fund by an extra $100 million, after overwhelmingly approving a bill for financing the U.S. Department of Education in fiscal 2010. | ||
| 07/31/2009 | Education Week | |
| The Great Graduation-Rate Debate | ||
| The exact same body of students can have vastly different completion rates, depending on how you calculate them. Christine O. Wolfe, a former federal official and Hill staffer who worked assiduously on this issue, explains these complex formulae and the cogitation surrounding them in a new primer, titled "The Great Graduation-Rate Debate." She lays out the commonly used rates, how they are calculated, where they get their data, and why some rates have prevailed over others. | ||
| 07/30/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Transparency of Common-Standards Process at Issue | ||
| As the most concerted effort to create common academic standards in more than a decade rolls forward, the process has drawn criticism from those who say that too much of the nitty-gritty work is taking place behind closed doors. | ||
| 07/30/2009 | Education Week | |
| U.S. Education Department Awards $82 Million in Charter School Grants to Five States to Increase Public School Options | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) today announced the award of five charter school grants, totaling $82 million, to state education agencies in Arizona, Louisiana, New Mexico, Tennessee and Wisconsin to increase public school options in those states. | ||
| 07/29/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Teacher Training Faces Overhaul | ||
| Proposed rules being unveiled would give Indiana teachers a new mandate: what you teach matters more than how you teach. | ||
| 07/29/2009 | Indianapolis Star | |
| Secretary Duncan: Use New School Money on Something New | ||
| This commentary by Gary W. Ritter and Robert Maranto addresses how public schools invest money. | ||
| 07/29/2009 | Education Week | |
| Jacksonville Schools' Boundaries on Table | ||
| A range of boundary-line options for a possible Jacksonville school district is on the agenda for a special meeting tonight of the school board for the Pulaski County Special School District. | ||
| 07/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Secretary Duncan Announces Five New Members of His Leadership Team | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced five new members to his leadership team. Each brings valuable skills and experience in their fields to different offices within the Department of Education. | ||
| 07/27/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| As Charter Schools Unionize, Many Debate Effect | ||
| Dissatisfied with long hours, churning turnover and, in some cases, lower pay than instructors at other public schools, an increasing number of teachers at charter schools are unionizing. | ||
| 07/26/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Surprising News About the Achievement Gap | ||
| The gap in academic achievement levels between white and black students historically has been the widest in Southern states, but a new study released by the Department of Education shows that black students' learning gains are improving more in the south than in some Northern states. | ||
| 07/24/2009 | U.S. News | |
| 13 Projects in Counties, Cities to Get Stimulus Aid | ||
| Thirteen small Arkansas cities and counties have won economic-recovery grants to fix or expand local infrastructure, the state's recovery office announced Thursday. | ||
| 07/24/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Draft Content Standards Elicit Mixed Reviews | ||
| A draft of common academic standards, meant to bring greater coherence to the nation's English and mathematics lessons, is drawing a mix of enthusiastic, ambivalent, and barbed responses from those who have seen it. | ||
| 07/23/2009 | Education Week | |
| Race to Top Guidelines Stress Use of Test Data | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education's proposed guidelines for awarding $4 billion in Race to the Top money send a strong message that any state hoping to land a grant must allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher compensation and evaluation. | ||
| 07/23/2009 | Education Week | |
| School District Quits Co-op's Alternative Learning Program | ||
| The Prairie Grove School District has opted out of participating in the Boston Mountain Education Cooperative's alternative learning program in Fayetteville for the coming year. | ||
| 07/23/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Rogers Schools Receive $1 Million for Pre-K Classes | ||
| The Rogers School District has been awarded $1.08 million in 21st Century Community Learning Center Grants to provide prekindergarten classes for 4-year-olds for five years. The new pre-K classrooms will be based at Eastside Elementary School and Russell Jones Elementary School. | ||
| 07/23/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Bill Gates Stresses the Importance of Good Teachers | ||
| The U.S. must improve its educational standing in the world by rewarding effective teaching and by developing better, universal measures of performance for students and teachers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Tuesday. | ||
| 07/22/2009 | Education Week | |
| Charter School Board Approves Policies | ||
| Policies that will govern both charter schools in Rogers were approved Tuesday night during a special meeting of the Benton County Charter School Organization Founding Board of Directors. | ||
| 07/22/2009 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Report Urges Halt to Extra Pay for Master's Degrees | ||
| States are spending billions in education dollars each year rewarding teachers for earning advanced degrees that show little correlation with improved student achievement, a report released yesterday concludes. | ||
| 07/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Duncan's Call for School Turnarounds Sparks Debate | ||
| The U.S. secretary of education's call to "turn around" the nation's 5,000 worst-performing schools has found a warm welcome among educators and policymakers who see that focus as long overdue. But it has also sparked debate about how-and whether-such an enormous leadership and management challenge can be accomplished. | ||
| 07/21/2009 | Education Week | |
| Arkansas Teacher Earns Presidential Award | ||
| An Arkansas educator is among more than 100 science, math and engineering teachers and mentors nationwide named by President Obama as recipients of two presidential awards for excellence. | ||
| 07/21/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Small, Enthusiastic Response Received For New Charter School | ||
| A small but seemingly enthusiastic group of parents, patrons and teachers learned more about the operations of a new Washington County charter school, Prism Education Center, that may be opened in south Fayetteville in August 2010. | ||
| 07/21/2009 | The Morning News | |
| State Test Score Trends Through 2007-08, Part 2: Is There a Plateau Effect in Test Scores? | ||
| The Center on Education Policy released a report that examines the so-called "plateau effect" that holds that test scores rise in the early years of a test-based accountability system and then level off. The analysis draws from a database of reading and math test results from all 50 states going back as far as 1999. | ||
| 07/21/2009 | Center on Education Policy | |
| School's in for 2 Districts in Pulaski County | ||
| Under pressure to raise student scores on the annual Arkansas Benchmark and End-of-Course exams, the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts are relying more than ever on summer school to increase instruction time and rev up achievement. | ||
| 07/19/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Teachers' Pay Being Tied to Test Scores | ||
| The Indiana Department of Education will offer the chance for cash bonuses to help draw teachers to the state's lowest-performing schools in a program that will for the first time tie teachers' pay to students' test scores. | ||
| 07/16/2009 | IndyStar | |
| All Grades Top 60% Mark on State-Tests | ||
| More than 60 percent of the state's third-through-eighth grade students scored at grade level or better on math and literacy tests for the first time. | ||
| 07/14/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Test Scores Benefit eStem Teachers | ||
| The test results are in. Students made achievement gains. And, as a result, every classroom teacher at the three new eStem Public Charter Schools in downtown Little Rock on Monday received merit awards of at least $5,565. | ||
| 07/14/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Racial Gap in Testing Sees Shift by Region | ||
| Black students have made important gains in several southern states over two decades, while in some northern states, black achievement has improved more slowly than white achievement, or has even declined, according to a study of the black-white achievement gap released Tuesday by the Department of Education. | ||
| 07/14/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Decatur, Greenland School Districts End Year in Black | ||
| The Decatur and Greenland school districts ended the 2008-09 school year in the black after being taken over by the state in 2008 because of financial troubles, the districts' state-appointed superintendents reported Monday to the state Board of Education. | ||
| 07/13/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| 2009 Arkansas Test Scores | ||
| For the first time, more than 60 percent of Arkansas students at each grade level scored at or above proficient on both the mathematics and literacy Arkansas Augmented Benchmark Exams. | ||
| 07/13/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Schools Work to Keep Dropouts In | ||
| Dropping out of high school costs the students future income and society the taxes from that income, but efforts to keep kids in school show limited results. | ||
| 07/11/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Teacher Incentive Hike Survives in Key House Panel | ||
| ’s fiscal 2010 budget, approving a plan that embraces one of President Barack Obama's top priorities: providing a big increase for a program that rewards effective teachers. | ||
| 07/10/2009 | Education Week | |
| Racing for an Early Edge | ||
| Even before they've finished spending their first block of federal stimulus aid, states are getting a head start in a national "race to the top" for better public education, without even knowing rules to the game. | ||
| 07/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Obama Names Picks for High-Ranking Education Posts | ||
| President Barack Obama plans to nominate a state schools chief from the Midwest and the leader of a New England nonprofit group to fill two high-ranking positions at the U.S. Department of Education, with oversight over special education programs and over vocational and adult education. | ||
| 07/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Computer Tool Sizes up Math, Science Policies | ||
| Can a computer simulation help guide the United States toward producing more and better-qualified math and science students? A team of engineers from the Raytheon Co. thinks so. Today, after three years of work, they join business and education supporters in unveiling a "simulation and modeling" computer tool designed to crunch vast amounts of data about students, teachers, and the workforce, and evaluate various mathematics and science education policies. | ||
| 07/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Secretary Duncan Challenges National Education Association to Accelerate School Reforms | ||
| Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today praised the National Education Association for its effort to improve the quality of the education workforce and challenged the union to reevaluate some of its policies on compensating teachers and offering them job protections. | ||
| 07/02/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Two Suggest Charter Schools in Washington County | ||
| Two groups have filed letters of intent with the Arkansas Department of Education to establish open enrollment charter schools in Washington County. The department received 14 letters from across the state. | ||
| 07/02/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Duncan Passes NEA on Merit Pay, Tenure | ||
| Teachers' unions must be willing to reconsider seniority provisions, rework tenure provisions, and work with districts to create fair ways of incorporating student-achievement growth in teacher evaluation and compensation, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today. | ||
| 07/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Studies Probe 'Value Added' Measures | ||
| A new study by a Princeton University economist stuggest that "value-added" methods for determining the effectiveness of classroom teachers are built on some shaky assumptions and may be misleading. | ||
| 07/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| Expert Panels Named in Common-Standards Push | ||
| The two national organizations coordinating a push for common academic standards today named the 29 people who are deciding what math and language arts skills students will need to know and when, along with the 35 people who will formally critique the group's work. | ||
| 07/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| More Than $297 Million in Recovery Funds Now Available for Arkansas to Save Jobs and Drive Education Reform | ||
| U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that more than $297 million is now available for Arkansas under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. | ||
| 07/01/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Education Chief to be America's Choice Exec | ||
| Ken James, who is resigning effective today as Arkansas' education commissioner, will become executive vice president and chief operating officer for America's Choice, a national school improvement company based in Washington, D.C. | ||
| 06/30/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Dr. Julian to Serve as Interim Commissioner | ||
| Diana Julian, Ed.D., will assume the duties of interim commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education beginning Wednesday, July 1. Julian has served the state as deputy commissioner of education since 2007 and, prior to that, as assistant commissioner for the division of learning services. The Arkansas State Board of Education appointed her as interim upon the departure of Ken James, Ed.D., who late last month announced that he would resign as Arkansas's Commissioner of Education effective June 30 to pursue a role in the private sector. | ||
| 06/30/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| SREB Urges Greater Focus on Middle Grades in South | ||
| A new report raises concerns about the achievement levels of middle school students in many southern states and outlines steps state leaders should consider to better prepare young people for high school. | ||
| 06/30/2009 | Education Week | |
| Top-Scoring Nations Share Strategies on Teachers | ||
| American officials trying to learn from the policies and practices of top-performing nations seem to have two exemplary models in Singapore and Finland. | ||
| 06/30/2009 | Education Week | |
| Rural School's Closure Called Unconstitutional | ||
| Closing isolated schools because of high transportation costs violates the Arkansas Constitution, an attorney representing a group of parents fighting to keep their rural schools open argued in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Friday. | ||
| 06/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Guest Writer: Move Exams to End of Course | ||
| William McComas makes a suggestion about End of Course exams in this opinion editorial piece: End of Course exams should be given at the end of the year. | ||
| 06/29/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Study: Charter Pupils Profiting | ||
| Gains in math and reading test scores for Arkansas' openenrollment charter school students were significantly better than the ones for their peers in traditional public schools - bucking the overall results in a 15-state study by a Stanford University research center. | ||
| 06/27/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Secretary Duncan Urges Charters to Turn Around Schools, Improve Accountability | ||
| Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today called on charter school leaders to become active players in the national effort to turn around low-performing schools and to take aggressive actions to ensure their schools are held accountable for student results. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| NCATE Offers Multiple Paths to Reaccreditation | ||
| As part of the first major overhaul of its system in nearly a decade, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education will give education schools a choice of two different pathways for seeking reaccreditation, officials for the group announced today. | ||
| 06/23/2009 | Education Week | |
| Model State Charter School Law Unveiled | ||
| The nation's leading charter school organization has unveiled a proposal aimed at overhauling the wide range of state laws that govern the publicly funded schools, as well as establishing charter laws in the 10 states that don't yet allow the schools to operate. | ||
| 06/23/2009 | Education Week | |
| Limit Learning Losses During Summer Vacation | ||
| It's called "the summer brain drain" because during those long, hot months away from school, kids supposedly forget a lot of what they had learned in class. Research, however, tells a more nuanced story: Some learning is lost among some groups, and others gain. | ||
| 06/23/2009 | The Washington Post-South Coast Today | |
| Easing a College Financial Aid Headache | ||
| The Obama administration is moving to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, a notoriously complicated form that asks students seeking financial aid for college as many as 153 questions. | ||
| 06/23/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Court Affirms Reimbursement for Special Education | ||
| In a decision that could help disabled students obtain needed services and cost school districts millions of dollars, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that parents of special-education students may seek government reimbursement for private school tuition, even if they have never received special-education services in public school. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Court Says Public Must Pay for Private Special Ed | ||
| The Supreme Court has made it easier for parents of special education students to be reimbursed for the cost of private schooling for their children. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | Associated Press-Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort | ||
| The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools a big part of its plans for improving the nation's education system, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan will warn advocates of the schools on Monday that low-quality institutions are giving their movement a black eye. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Future of Fayetteville High School : Board to Decide Fate of High School's 1991 Addition | ||
| At its regular meeting on Thursday, the Fayetteville Board of Education will decide the scope of the construction project and the millage increase needed to finance a new school on the current campus. The millage election will be held Sept. 15. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| California Charter Group Proposes Renewal Standards | ||
| California's influential charter school organization announced a plan last week that its leaders say would make it easier for school districts to shut down the largely independent public schools when they fail to meet minimum academic benchmarks. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | Education Week | |
| Unions Seek Bigger Role in Charter Schools | ||
| As the Obama administration pushes for more charter schools, a teachers' union is pushing for a bigger role in them. | ||
| 06/22/2009 | Associated Press-Yahoo! News | |
| School Choice Deadline July 1 | ||
| July 1 is the established deadline for turning in school choice transfer applications. Under school choice, students can attend school in another district without permission from the home district provided they meet the deadline. | ||
| 06/20/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| New Happy Hollow School Goes To Planning | ||
| Officials for the new Happy Hollow Elementary School will go before the Fayetteville Planning Commission to get the 32.5-acre site rezoned from its single-family home zoning to a more appropriate institutional zone. | ||
| 06/19/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Ouachita High Named Among Top in Nation | ||
| Ouachita was announced as one of the top 1,500 high schools in the nation by Newsweek, coming in at 1,198. It was one of eight schools in the state named to the list. | ||
| 06/18/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Success at Small Schools Has a Price, a Report Says | ||
| Replacing large, poor-performing high schools with smaller schools in New York City has led to lower attendance and graduation rates at other large high schools, which have struggled to accommodate influxes of high-needs students, according to a report to be released on Wednesday. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | The New York Times | |
| NCLB Found to Raise Scores Across Spectrum | ||
| Since the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted, critics have questioned whether the law's mandate to bring students to "proficiency" has resulted in schools ignoring the needs of the nation's highest- and lowest-achieving students. A new study, released today, suggests those fears have not become reality. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Scholars Make Case for Integration | ||
| A study presented on Capitol Hill last week provides new evidence that black and Latino children who attend elementary schools with high concentrations of minority students fare worse academically than students being taught in whiter, or more integrated, school settings. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Draft Literacy Bill Would Boost Funds for Older Students | ||
| A draft of a bill that some members of the U.S. Senate hope to introduce this summer would replace three federal reading programs, including Reading First, and authorize nearly a fivefold increase in the amount of money the federal government provides for literacy in grades 4-12. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Springdale: Stimulus Funding Benefits Schools | ||
| An influx of federal dollars will free up the Springdale School District's budget, allowing it to follow through on projects that have been waiting to be funded for several years. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| District Switches Stimulus Schools | ||
| The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District on Tuesday voted to use a portion of its federal stimulus funding to undertake a $5.5 million renovation and expansion of Pine Forest Elementary School in Maumelle. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Close Underperforming Charter Schools, Reward Those That Work | ||
| Education Secretary Arne Duncan is pressuring states to raise their caps on charter schools and figure out ways to expand high-performing charters, he also wants states to close lousy charter schools-a smart action to take considering this week's study revealing the high number of mediocre charters out there. | ||
| 06/17/2009 | EducationNews.org | |
| Study Puts Results of International Tests on Common Metric | ||
| An American researcher has attempted to make comparisons on international tests, such as PISA and TIMSS, more meaningful to the public, by comparing the performance of students in U.S. states and cities against that of their foreign peers using a well-understood metric: letter grades. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | Education Week | |
| Subject Groups Seeking Voice on Standards | ||
| Some of the country's largest subject-matter groups are worried they will be ignored in the process of setting national academic standards that is now under way. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | Education Week | |
| Stimulus Aid's Pace Still Slow | ||
| The flow of K-12 economic-stimulus money to states and local school districts remains slow, as governors and state legislators face the practical challenge of absorbing billions of dollars aimed at stabilizing their budgets, while satisfying the U.S. Department of Education's requirements for that aid. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | Education Week | |
| Board Appoints Five New Building Administrators | ||
| Five new building administrators were appointed Tuesday by the Rogers School Board and a bowling team will become part of the high schools athletic programs this fall. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | The Morning News | |
| 4.9 Mill Increase Recommended To Pay For High School | ||
| The administration recommends a 4.9-mill tax increase to pay the estimated $113 million construction cost for master plan No. 2, which includes all new classroom space on the 40-acre campus. The board plans to vote on the amount of the millage increase at its June 25 meeting. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Obama Team's Advocacy Boosts Charter Momentum | ||
| President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have been championing charter schools for months, creating what some advocates believe is the most forceful national momentum to expand the largely independent public schools since the first charter opened nearly 20 years ago. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | Education Week | |
| Preschool Programs Tread Thin Budget Ice | ||
| Early-childhood programs remain popular among state lawmakers, who for the most part have attempted to hold the line on cuts even in the midst of the recession. | ||
| 06/16/2009 | Education Week | |
| Response to Intervention in Math Seen as Challenging | ||
| Educators gathered here last week to discuss a recent federal "practice guide" on response to intervention for students struggling in mathematics agreed that applying the RTI approach to that subject is challenging. But they also suggested that doing so was worth the effort. | ||
| 12/31/1969 | Education Week | |
| Higher Standards, Better Tests, Race to the Top | ||
| Last night Secretary Arne Duncan pledged to help pay for the development of assessments aligned with the higher common standards that 49 states and territories are developing. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Duncan Offers Stimulus Funds for States to Develop Rigorous Assessments Linked to Common Standards | ||
| In the second of four major policy speeches on the priorities for the "Race to the Top" Fund, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced last night that the Department of Education will commit up to $350 million of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund to support states in the creation of rigorous assessments linked to the internationally benchmarked common standards being developed by states. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Study Casts Doubt on Charter School Results | ||
| A national study released by researchers at Stanford University casts doubt on whether the academic performance of students in charter schools is any better than that of their peers in regular public schools. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | Education Week | |
| Report: Arkansas Charter Schools Outperform Traditional Schools | ||
| A new study claims that charter school students in Arkansas perform significantly better than their peers in traditional public schools, but charter school students in other states tend to perform at or below the level of their public school counterparts. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| More Details Emerging on Race to the Top Fund | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's game plan for his Race to the Top fund-the most talked-about portion of the economic-stimulus package for education-is coming into clearer focus, with his announcement that $350 million of the $4.35 billion fund will be used to help states develop common academic assessments. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | Education Week | |
| Study Finds Instruction in Art Lags in 8th Grade | ||
| Music and art instruction in American eighth-grade classrooms has remained flat over the last decade, according to a new survey by the Department of Education, and one official involved in the survey called student achievement in those subjects "mediocre." | ||
| 06/15/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Beebe Says Education Must Consider Development | ||
| If Arkansas wants to make the big leagues, it must take into consideration its economic development needs while it is building its education system, Gov. Mike Beebe says. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | Associated Press - Education Week | |
| NAEP Finds Schools' Offerings in Arts Hold Steady | ||
| About the same share of 8th graders attend schools where music and visual-arts instruction are offered as a decade ago-a proportion that accounts for only about half the nation's schoolchildren at that age. | ||
| 06/15/2009 | Education Week | |
| No Longer Letting Scores Separate Pupils | ||
| Four Stamford middle schools previously using a three to five level academic tracking system plan to institute a new two-tiered model in the fall due to a belief that the previous system created a highly segregated caste system that was failing low-level students. | ||
| 06/14/2009 | The New York Times | |
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Announces $18.5 Million to Improve School Libraries and Encourage Reading in Low-Income Schools | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced the award of $18.5 million to enhance libraries in 57 low-income school districts across the United States. The grants will help schools improve reading achievement by providing students with increased access to current school library materials; technologically advanced media centers; and professionally certified media specialists. | ||
| 06/12/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| New Tethers Eyed for Milwaukee Vouchers | ||
| Proponents say the goal is to ensure more accountability for the secular and religious schools that enroll students aided by the state-funded program. But the plan has sparked an outcry from private school leaders and some voucher supporters, who say the demands are too burdensome and a back-door attempt to destroy the oldest and one of the largest tuition-voucher programs in the nation. | ||
| 06/12/2009 | Education Week | |
| LR District Drafts Plan for Stimulus | ||
| Little Rock School District administrators unveiled a proposed plan Thursday for spending almost $36.5 million in federal stimulus funds over the next 2 1/2 years. | ||
| 06/12/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| N.C. District Lets Go of Veteran Teachers, But Keeps TFA Hires | ||
| Faced with a yawning budget gap, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board last week approved plans to let go of hundreds of teachers, basing that decision on the teachers' low performance on evaluations, rather than on their seniority. Even more controversially, the 134,000-student North Carolina district granted an exemption to teachers hired through the Teach For America recruiting program who meet teaching standards over more-senior teachers, and it is poised to hire more TFA alumni. | ||
| 06/12/2009 | Education Week | |
| Demand Grows for Free Lunches | ||
| Nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation's schools, an all-time high, federal data show, and many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals' rising costs. | ||
| 06/11/2009 | USA Today | |
| Diplomas Count 2009 | ||
| Arkansa's public high school graduation rate is above the national average, according to Diplomas Count 2009, the fourth annual report issued by Washington-based Education Week that outlines high school graduation policies and trends. Arkansas' graduation rate for 2006, the year for which the most recent data is available, was 71.9 percent, while the graduation rate for the nation was 69.2 percent. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Unions Set Sights on High-Profile Charter-Network Schools | ||
| What started as a ripple in the charter community shows signs of becoming a wave as major charter school networks scramble to respond to an unfamiliar phenomenon: moves by their teachers to organize unions. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Though N.J. Funding Formula Upheld, Abbott Intact | ||
| Recently blessed by the state's high court, New Jersey's new school funding formula revolutionizes the way education is financed in the Garden State. But it does not end the 28-year-old lawsuit that helped bring it about. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Truth in Training | ||
| This opinion article in the New York Times covers a new report by The New Teacher Project. The study, "The Widget Effect," is based on surveys of more than 16,000 teachers and adminitrators in four states: Arkansas, Colorado, Illionois, and Ohio. "Education reform will go nowhere until the states are forced to revamp corrupt teacher evaluation systems that rate a vast majority of teachers as 'excellent,' even in schools where children learn nothing." | ||
| 06/09/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Diplomas Count 2009, Broader Horizons: the Challenge of College Readiness for All Students | ||
| The 4th annual Diplomas Count produced by Education Week has been released for 2009. Stories include NCLB Rules Back Common Rate, Building a Future Aimed at College, and Enthusiasm Builds for Data System. You can also find state graduation rate reports and trends. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| New Lottery Chief: Took Rethinking to Take Job | ||
| Ernie Passailaigue, Arkansas' newly hired lottery director, initially wasn't interested in the job when a member of the state Lottery Commission asked him about it during a break in the commission's retreat on Petit Jean Mountain last month. But he said Monday in a telephone interview from his South Carolina office that a few things made him rethink the idea and led to his accepting the Arkansas job Friday. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Some State Grad Rates Highly Rated | ||
| A higher percentage of Arkansas' minority students graduate from high school than peers in other states, according to a survey of nationwide graduation rates released Monday. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Arkansas Public Schools Lost 2,192 | ||
| The average number of students attending Arkansas public schools in 2008-09 fell 2,192 short of the figure the year before, surprising state education officials who had predicted an increase of nearly 600. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Education Deputy Set to Step In | ||
| Diana Julian, the deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education, will serve as interim commissioner at the agency while the state Board of Education looks for a successor to replace Ken James, who is resigning June 30. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| There Will Be Only One: Two Charter Schools Will be Allowed to Converge into a Single School System | ||
| A unanimous vote from the Arkansas Board of Education sealed the deal for Rogers' two charter schools to be combined into one school system. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Dual Aims in Stimulus Stir Tension | ||
| States find themselves torn between using the federal money to plug budget holes and to push school reform. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Unions Set Sights on High-Profile Charter-Network Schools | ||
| What started as a ripple in the charter community shows signs of becoming a wave as major charter school networks scramble to respond to an unfamiliar phenomenon: moves by their teachers to organize unions. | ||
| 06/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| States Open to Charters Start Fast in 'Race to Top' | ||
| Emphasizing the need for additional effective education entrepreneurs to join the work of reforming America's lowest performing public schools, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told reporters during a conference call this afternoon that states must be open to charter schools. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| How to Fast-Track Rising Teacher Stars | ||
| Several school districts across the country are trying to change their teacher-salary structures in ways that would not only reward performance, but also allow effective teachers to reach top salary levels earlier in their careers, making teacher-compensation plans more in line with those in other occupations. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Two Charter Schools in Rogers Ask state to OK Combination Plan | ||
| Today, leaders of Rogers' two charter schools will ask the Arkansas Board of Education to consolidate their schools into one school system on a single charter. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online | ||
| Westport teachers were frustrated at having to rush through the curriculum only to find students didn't grasp important concepts, so they created their own online program. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Ed Secretary: Judge Teachers on How Students Do | ||
| Teachers should be judged on student performance, though not solely on test scores, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| U.S. Secretary of Education Calls on State Officials and Researchers to Deliver Honest Answers about Reforms | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today that school reforms should be monitored and judged by results that can be backed up by research proving their effectiveness. | ||
| 06/08/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Event Video: The Cons and Pros of Universal Pre-School | ||
| This is a video from the Fordham Institute at an event on Checker Finn's new book "Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut," which challenges the idea of universal preschool. | ||
| 06/07/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Report: Expectations Gap Divides Educators from Students | ||
| In a new report that explores the views of teachers and principals about the nation's dropout crisis finds an "unsettling" gap with the expectations of achievement held by students and parents. | ||
| 06/05/2009 | Innovator | |
| Lottery Director Named | ||
| The Arkansas Lottery Commission voted unanimously Friday to hire Ernie Passailaigue, currently executive director of the South Carolina Education Lottery, as executive director of Arkansas' lottery. | ||
| 06/05/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Senate Rejects Charter Schools, Risking U.S. Funds | ||
| The Senate decisively shot down a bid to allow charter schools in Maine on Thursday, putting Maine's access to federal Race tto the Top education funds in doubt. | ||
| 06/05/2009 | Kennebec Journal | |
| How High-Performing Charter Schools Do "Merit Pay" | ||
| With all the positive press surrounding high-achieving charter schools, it's not surprising that they've turned into the education reformer's go-to point of comparison. And so, when Jay Mathews wrote earlier this week that districts could learn a thing or two from high-flying charters about performance-based pay for teachers, I was intrigued - especially because, as Mathews made clear, these schools generally don't pay their staff that way. Instead, the reward for teaching in great charters is a great work environment--a culture of success, where strong performance is praised, and, more importantly, shoddy work holds consequences. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| The Widget Effect: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness | ||
| This study claims that "A teachers effectiveness - the most important factor for schools in improving student achievement - is not measured, recorded, or used to inform decision-making in any meaningful way." The Widget Effect studies teacher evaluation and dismissal in four states - Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, and Ohio - ranging from 4,000 to 400,000 students in enrollment. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | The New Teacher Project | |
| Why We're Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don't | ||
| This study compares the U.S., whose education system focuses on a set of basic skills, to other countries who concentrate on content and trust that the basic skills will be taught through exposure. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | Common Core | |
| Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers | ||
| A school opening in New York in September may test whether high pay translates into more successful students. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Farewell Tour: New Visits Schools for Last Time as Superintendent | ||
| ville elementary and middle schools Wednesday. He visited them one last time before he retires at the end of the month, after 13 years as superintendent of Fayetteville Public Schools. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Arkansas Joins Effort on Curricular System | ||
| Arkansas is joining with 45 other states to develop common curriculum standards in math and English/language arts for public school students in kindergartenthrough-12th grades. Gov. Mike Beebe and Education Commissioner Ken James signed a memorandum of agreement on behalf of the state to support the Common Core State Initiative that is jointly led by the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. | ||
| 06/04/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Leading the Charge for Real-Time Data | ||
| Well before the idea of using data to manage schools gained prominence on the national stage, Oklahoma's Western Heights school district had made the ideal of real-time, data-driven decision making a reality. | ||
| 06/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| 46 States Commit to Common-Standards Push | ||
| Forty-six states-representing 80 percent of the nation's K-12 student population-have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English language arts through an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The four states not on board, as of Friday, were Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas. | ||
| 06/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| Lieutenant Governor Says Lottery Scholarships Are A Must Do for 2010 | ||
| Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter said today that lottery tickets should be on the sale before the end of this year and he expected to see the first round of lottery-funded college scholarships awarded in fall 2010. "I can't imagine a set of circumstances where we're not providing scholarships next year," Halter said. "If we're not providing scholarships to those students who are entering college in August of 2010, somebody's failed. We need to be able to do that." | ||
| 06/03/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Grade Inflation Seen in Teacher Evaluations | ||
| Few parents, principals, or even teachers themselves agree that all teachers are equally effective at helping children learn. Yet formal teacher evaluations tell a different story, one that looks a bit like something out of Lake Wobegon. In many school districts, nearly all tenured teachers-like the children in author Garrison Keillor's fictional town-are deemed above average, concludes a study released today. | ||
| 06/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| Preventing High School Dropouts Can Start in 4th Grade | ||
| One out of every four students fails to graduate from high school in four years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Risk factors for dropping out include low academic achievement, mental health problems, truancy, poverty and teen pregnancy. | ||
| 06/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Okla. Superintendent Warns of Possible Step Backward | ||
| Last week the state Board of Education, with state superintendent of public instruction Sandy Garrett's support, adopted a resolution urging school districts that now exceed the minimum required instructional time not to retreat from their positions because they can under the new law. | ||
| 06/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| Common Core State Standards Initiative | ||
| Governor Mike Beebe and Arkansas Commissioner of Education Ken James today joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a state-led process to develop common English-language arts and mathematics standards. The Common Core State Standards Initiative will be jointly led by the NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). | ||
| 06/01/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Dr. Ken James Announcement | ||
| Dr. Ken James, Arkansas Commissioner of Education, today announced his resignation from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), after five-plus years of service as the state's chief school officer. Dr. James' final day with the state department will be June 30. | ||
| 05/29/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| State Halts One Merit Pay Plan for Teachers, Keeps Newer Program | ||
| Texas' longest running merit pay plan for teachers is being quietly retired this year after getting lackluster returns on its $100-million-a-year investment. | ||
| 05/18/2009 | The Dallas Morning News | |
| Report: U.S. Students Lag in Biosciences | ||
| Middle and high school students across the country are generally falling behind in life sciences, and the nation is at risk of producing a dearth of qualified workers for the fast-growing bioscience industry, according to a report released Monday. | ||
| 05/18/2009 | USA Today | |
| Schools Thinking Outside the Box | ||
| Arkansas school districts will begin this week sending to the state Department of Education their plans for spending federal stimulus funds, a windfall of more than $565 million. Gary Ritter, director of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville's Office on Education Policy, put out a call last week for districts to be innovative - even daring - in their use of the unexpected funds. | ||
| 05/17/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Aspiring Primary Teachers May Be Tested in Math | ||
| Elementary school teachers lay the foundation for students' knowledge in many subjects, including mathematics-an area in which they may have little background. To address that concern, Massachusetts is preparing to require all elementary educators to pass a math-specific test for state licensure, as opposed to simply mandating that they notch a general passing score across all subjects. | ||
| 05/15/2009 | Education Week | |
| Vouching for Vouchers | ||
| "In my opinion, by demonstrating statistically significant impacts overall in reading in an experimental evaluation, the D.C. [Opportunity Scholarship Program] has met a tough standard for efficacy in serving low-income inner-city students," Patrick J. Wolf told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Operations. | ||
| 05/14/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| Report Points to Risks of Merit Pay for Teachers | ||
| Merit-pay plans for teachers may be growing more popular with politicians, but a report released today argues that such compensation plans are rarely used in the private sector and can sometimes bring about unintended negative consequences. | ||
| 05/14/2009 | Education Week | |
| Budget Would Boost Incentive Pay, Turnaround Aid | ||
| President Barack Obama's first budget proposal would boost U.S. Department of Education spending by 2.8 percent and provide substantial resources to turn around low-performing schools, reward effective teachers, and bolster early-childhood programs. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| H.S. Reformers Seize on NAEP Scores to Help Make Case | ||
| High school reform advocates are using long-term-trend data from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress to argue that reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act should step up accountability for high schools. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| ETS Tracks Causes of Scoring Gaps | ||
| The Educational Testing Service claims in a recent report that the United States has made little progress over the past six years in reducing the disparities that keep poor and minority students from achieving the same kind of academic success as their white and better-off peers. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| District Retakes Teacher Pay Lead | ||
| The Springdale School District regained its place as the highest paying district in the state for beginning teachers Tuesday when the School Board approved a $1,250 retroactive increase for each phase of its salary schedule. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lottery Panel to Go Off, Get Down to Details | ||
| At a Petit Jean Mountain retreat Thursday and Friday, the Arkansas Lottery Commission will pick the brains of lottery directors from Georgia and South Carolina with an eye toward setting up Arkansas' first lottery. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Greenland Public Schools: Superintendent Sees Ending Year with $50K more | ||
| With the school year winding down, Superintendent Roland Smith said Tuesday he hopes to finish the fiscal year with a balance of $200,000, up from previous predictions of $150,000. | ||
| 05/13/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Springdale Teachers to Get Salary Boost | ||
| Springdale teachers will get a $1,250 adjustment in June which will carry over into their new contract year as a salary increase effective July 1. | ||
| 05/12/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Education Groups in State Get $635,000 from Verizon | ||
| Two educational nonprofits were among the recipients Monday of grants totaling $635,000 from the Verizon Foundation, the philanthropic arm of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. | ||
| 05/12/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| For Many Teachers, a Famously Fertile Market Dries Up Overnight | ||
| In an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs, the Department of Education in New York City ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only. As a result, aspiring teachers at education schools and members of programs like Teacher for America - a corps of recent college graduates - and the city's Teaching Fellows - which trains career professionals to become teachers - are scrambling for jobs. | ||
| 05/10/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Task Force to Look at Qualities of "Highly Qualified" Teachers | ||
| In the not-too-distance future, school districts across the state will be able to evaluate a teacher using the same criteria - not with a test, but with a research-based list of criteria. A state Department of Education task force is about to tackle the job of formulating the standards. | ||
| 05/10/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| 14 Area School Districts' Lawsuit Latest Battle in War over Funding | ||
| Oral arguments are set for May 21 before the state Supreme Court in a lawsuit by 14 school districts accusing the state of violating the state constitution by relying too much on local property taxes for funding schools. | ||
| 05/10/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Research Partnership Launches First Product | ||
| Researchers from the Strategic Education Research Partnership have developed a new program that addresses inadequacies in the vocabularies of many middle school children. The program is called "Word Generation" and it consists of short, engaging vocabulary-boosting lessons that are taught each day by different teachers across the middle school curriculum. | ||
| 05/07/2009 | EdWeek | |
| Obama Wants to Extend D.C. Voucher Program | ||
| Obama is proposing to spend $12.2 million for the 2010-2011 school year to continue the program for about 1,700 kids. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal has not been made public. | ||
| 05/06/2009 | EdWeek | |
| Lottery Commission Meets, Elects Chairman | ||
| Former U.S. Rep. Ray Thornton of Little Rock has been named as the first chairman of the Arkansas Lottery Commission. Thornton is also a former state attorney general, state Supreme Court justice and past president of both he University of Arkansas and Arkansas State University. | ||
| 05/05/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| U.S. No Longer Advising Schools to Close for Swine Flu | ||
| Health and Human Services is now reporting that the swine flu virus has been milder than anticipated. Officials are no longer recommending that schools close due to flu-like illnesses among students. | ||
| 05/05/2009 | EdWeek | |
| Reading Programs Found Ineffective | ||
| A federal study was conducted for four reading programs--Project CRISS, ReadAbout, Read for Real, and Reading for Knowledge--found disappointing results. The study concluded that Project CRISS, ReadAbout, and Read for Real had no effect on reading comprehension. In addition, they found that Reading for Knowledge had a negative impact on composite test scores. | ||
| 05/05/2009 | EdWeek | |
| Duncan Gets Earful on NCLB 'Listening Tour' | ||
| Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is currently on a 15-state "listening tour" to learn how NCLB works from the perspective of educators, parents, and kids. President Obama has been vague about changes he would make to the law, but his ideas are beginning to take shape as Duncan speaks out. | ||
| 05/05/2009 | EdWeek | |
| Push is on for national academic standards | ||
| There is a growing effort to establish common academic standards for the nation's elementary, middle, junior high and high schools. If things go according to plan, we may see a common set of standards for math and English in kindergarten through 12th grades by the end of the summer. | ||
| 05/04/2009 | Ark Dem Gaz | |
| Legislature Leaving School Choice Law Questions to Court | ||
| Lawmakers have been discussing a law that allows a student to apply for a transfer to a school district outside of the district in which he or she lives. However, the legislative session ended without approving any changes to the law. The decision will now be left to the courts. | ||
| 05/03/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Quality of Evaluations Draws New Attention as Stimulus Aid Flows | ||
| The nation's oft-criticized systems for evaluating the quality of its educator workforce are poised to receive increased scrutiny, thanks to an Obama administration plan to require school districts to disclose how many teachers perform well or poorly. | ||
| 04/22/2009 | Education Week | |
| Education Standards Likely to See Toughening | ||
| President Obama and his team have alternated praces for the goals of President George W. Bush's NCLB law with criticism of its weaknesses, all while keeping their own plans for the law a bit of a mystery. But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. | ||
| 04/14/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Oklahoma: House Passes School Deregulation Bill | ||
| Legislation that would allow 20 percent of public schools to operate as charter schools free of many state school mandates was approved by the Oklahoma House Wednesday in spite of opponents who said it will erode the due process rights of teachers and ultimately reduce state support of public schools. | ||
| 04/16/2009 | The Joplin Globe | |
| The Union War on Charter Schools | ||
| On education policy, appeasement is about as ineffective as it is in foreign affairs. Many proponents of school choice, especially Democrats, have tried to appease teachers unions by limiting their support to charter schools while opposing private school vouchers. They hope that by sacrificing vouchers, the unions will spare charter schools from political destruction. | ||
| 04/16/2009 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| Legislators Leave Racial Element of School Choice Law Intact | ||
| The 2009 Arkansas General Assembly ended without any school choice reform, although there was some talk prior to the session that the issue would be addressed. It proved to be too complex of an issue for legislators, as the session ended without any school choice reform. | ||
| 04/18/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Charter Schools Weigh Freedom Against the Protection of a Union | ||
| As the number of charter schools in New York City and elsewhere swells, unions have become increasingly aggressive in trying to organize their teachers. These two major forces in education politics, having long faced off in ideological opposition, have begun in some places to enter tentative and cautious partnerships, and in others to engage in fierce combat. | ||
| 04/20/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Amount of Stimulus Money to Individual Schools Revealed | ||
| ’s public school districts, charter schools and educational cooperatives will receive was disclosed Tuesday on a special Web site designed to help Arkansans keep track of how the funding is spent. | ||
| 04/21/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| How Much Stimulus? Schools Get the Answer | ||
| ’s office posted to a public web site Tuesday the amounts of money that each Arkansas school district can expect to receive in each of four categories of the stimulus funding. | ||
| 04/22/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| The Economic Impact of Achievement Gap in America's Schools | ||
| McKinsey's report, The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, examines the dimensions and economic impact of the education achievement gap. This report examines the dimensions of four district gaps in education: 1) between the United States and other nations, 2) between black and Latino students and white students, 3) between students of different income levels, and 4) between similar students schooled in different systems of regions. | ||
| 04/09/2009 | McKinsey and Company | |
| Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Respons to Intervention (RTI) for Elementary and Middle Schools | ||
| A new practice guide from the What Works Clearinghouse, "Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RTI) for Elementary and Middle Schools," offers eight recommendations to help educators use RTI for the early detection, prevention, and support of students struggling with this core subject. The guide also describes how to carry out the recommendations, as well as how to overcome potential roadblocks in implementing them. | ||
| 04/09/2009 | What Works Clearinghouse | |
| Many Teachers in Advanced Placement Voice Concern at Its Rapid Growth | ||
| ’s effectiveness is being threatened as districts loosen restrictions on who can take such rigorous courses and as students flock to them to polish their résumés. | ||
| 04/29/2009 | The New York Times | |
| House Panel Considers Federal Role in Standards | ||
| ’ unions all agreed at a hearing today that the United States needs to move toward common academic standards to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized economy—and that states must be the vehicle for the change. | ||
| 04/29/2009 | Education Week | |
| Arkansas Commissioner of Education Testifies before Congress on the Call for Common, State-Led Standards | ||
| Arkansas Commissioner of Education and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Board President T. Kenneth James testified today before the House Education and Labor Committee on the state-led common core standards initiative being guided by CCSSO and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). The purpose of the hearing was to examine how states can better prepare their students to compete in a global economy by using internationally benchmarked common standards. | ||
| 04/29/2009 | The Council of Chief State School Officers | |
| Go ahead: Teach to the test | ||
| Gary Ritter and Stuart Buck challenge the issue of teaching to the test. | ||
| 04/26/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Governor's Selections Complete Lottery Panel | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe appointed the final three members of the Arkansas Lottery Commission Monday, clearing the way for the body to prepare to launch the state's lotteries. | ||
| 04/14/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Beebe Appoints Final Three Members to Lottery Commission | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe on Monday appointed the final three members of the Arkansas Lottery Commission, naming George J. Hammons of Pine Bluff, Dianne Lamberth of Batesville and Ben Pickard of Beebe to the board that will oversee lottery operations. | ||
| 04/13/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Three School Districts Designated in Fiscal Distress | ||
| The Mansfield School District in Sebastian County, Mammoth Spring district in Fulton County and Osceola district in Mississippi County are projected to have deficits ranging from $121,306 to more than $760,000 by June 2010, state education officials said. | ||
| 04/13/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Stimulus Offers Support for School Construction | ||
| Some two months after enactment of the federal economic-stimulus package, school facilities directors are still trying to piece together how much money will be available under the measure for school construction projects, what it can be used for, and when it can be accessed. | ||
| 04/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| Ark. Gov Emerges from Session with more Victories | ||
| From his push for an increase in tobacco taxes to his call for another cut in Arkansas' grocery tax, Gov. Mike Beebe enjoyed another batch of victories in the Legislature in his second regular session as governor. | ||
| 04/13/2009 | Associated Press - Forbes | |
| Lottery on Track for Fall Start | ||
| State lawmakers say they are confident the work they accomplished this session has put the Arkansas' state-run lottery on track for a fall start. | ||
| 04/12/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| State Sets Terms for Schools' Stimulus | ||
| Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James on Friday laid out the terms for distributing hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars for public school instruction and campuses across the state over the next two years. | ||
| 04/11/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| ARRA Funds Meeting | ||
| Arkansas schools will be receiving up to $569.9 million over the next six months as part of President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. On April 10, Dr. Ken James, Arkansas Commissioner of Education, met with more than 1,000 school district, charter school and education cooperative personnel to share the Arkansas Department of Education's (ADE) guidance for wisely investing those funds. | ||
| 04/10/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Education Stimulus Funds about to Flow; School Officials Told to Spend Wisely | ||
| Arkansas' 245 school districts will receive up to $569.9 million over the next six months in federal stimulus funding, Education Commissioner Ken James told school officials from across the state Friday. | ||
| 04/10/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Study Puts Arkansas in Top Tier for Early Education | ||
| Arkansas' state-funded prekindergarten program for 3- and 4-year-olds is in the top echelon of programs nationally in terms of student enrollment, financial resources and quality, according to a 2008 study by the National Institute for Early Education Research. | ||
| 04/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Education Panel Says No to Two Proposals | ||
| The Senate Education Committee on Wednesday defeated one bill designed to let homeschooled students play football on school district teams and another aimed at keeping the Weiner district open by changing the state minimum enrollment law. | ||
| 04/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| 87th General Assembly Ends After 88-day Regular Session | ||
| The Legislature on Thursday put the finishing touches on a historic regular session in which lawmakers created the framework for operating a state-run lottery, passed a tobacco tax increase to fund a trauma system and crafted a make-do budget to try to ride out the recession. | ||
| 04/09/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Duncan Spells Out Preferred Uses of Stimulus Aid | ||
| After delivering a stern warning that states and school districts must use their federal stimulus money smartly or risk losing billions more, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his staff are starting to spell out exactly what they mean by "smartly." | ||
| 04/07/2009 | Education Week | |
| Rhee Works on Overhaul of Teacher Evaluations | ||
| While talks between D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and the Washington Teachers' Union remain stalemated over salary and job security issues, one critical question is not even on the bargaining table: how the District's educators will be evaluated. | ||
| 04/07/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| Senate Oks Tightening School Choice Law | ||
| Legislation to tighten residency requirements for school attendance under Arkansas' school choice law won final legislative approval in the Senate Tuesday. | ||
| 04/07/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| School Report Cards Provide Detail | ||
| Parents across Arkansas are receiving report cards this week on how their students and the schools they attend are performing on standardized testing but it's difficult to assess the impact the documents have on parents. | ||
| 04/05/2009 | The Morning News | |
| American Recovery Reinvestment Act Presentation | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education released a PowerPoint presentation on guiding principles and funding availability of the ARRA. The ARRA contains more than $1,000 billion in direct education funding for the next two fiscal years and $39 billion in bonding authority and tax credits. | ||
| 04/03/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Hub Teachers Reject Public Service Corps | ||
| They come from places like Harvard, Yale, and Brown, inspired to share their energy and knowledge with public school children. But the Boston Teachers Union has a message for those eager Teach for America recruits: Thanks, but no thanks. | ||
| 04/03/2009 | The Boston Globe | |
| Appeals Court Upholds Unitary Status in Little Rock School District Desegregation Case | ||
| A panel of judges on the 8th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upheld today the unitary status of the Little Rock school district in its long desegregation lawsuit. This could mean the Little Rock schools, after a quarter-century, soon will be relieved of federal court oversight. | ||
| 04/02/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Wills Adds His 3 Picks to Board for Lottery | ||
| House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, appointed three members to the newly created Arkansas Lottery Commission, and his lottery "cleanup" bill to clarify the salary of the commission's director cleared a committee Wednesday. Wills appointed Joe White of Conway, Mike Malone of Fayetteville, and Susan Ward-Jones of Marion. | ||
| 04/02/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Proposed Revisions Ease Restrictions on Tutoring | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced plans last week to lift a ban on allowing underperforming school districts to serve as tutoring providers under the No Child Left Behind Act, and to grant reprieves from a school-choice-notification requirement issued last fall. | ||
| 04/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Teacher Insurance Bill Stalls in Committee | ||
| A bill to set aside $25 million to help public school teachers with health insurance premiums failed to clear a legislative subcommittee Wednesday. The Special Language Subcommittee of the Joint Budget Committee rejected House Bill 1413 by Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena. Abernathy said he may bring the bill back and ask for a smaller amount. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| House Approves Sales tax Holiday, School Consolidation Bills | ||
| Bucking the Beebe administration, the House on Wednesday approved legislation to create a statewide back-to-school sales tax holiday and several other tax-cutting measures not included in the governor's balanced budget proposal. The House also approved a measure - opposed by the state attorney general's office - that would change the way a school district's enrollment is calculated for purposes of consolidation. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| $116 Million Available to Aide Arkansas Schools | ||
| Democratic members of Arkansas' congressional delegation announced Wednesday the release of more than $116 million in federal stimulus funds to maintain programs for low-income students and students with disabilities. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Education Secretary Says Aid Hinges on New Data | ||
| In a "Dear Governor" letter to the 50 states, Mr. Duncan said $44 billion in stimulus money was being made available to states immediately. To qualify for a second phase of financing later this year, however, governors will need to provide reams of detailed education information. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Stimulus Guidance Spotlights Taecher Evaluations | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today started rolling out $44 billion in economic-stimulus aid for education that comes with new teacher-quality reporting requirements for states and districts, and also with significantly more spending flexibility on school construction than many administrators had expected. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| TAP: More Than Performance Pay | ||
| TAP, which is likely to expand with federal stimulus funds, emphasizes building a collaborative workplace culture to improve instruction. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Education Week | |
| State Now Grading Schools on Students' Improvement | ||
| The new rating on the Arkansas Department of Education's School Performance Report Card is the "Gains Rating," a measure designed to give a review of the growth of a school's students. | ||
| 04/01/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| School Chief: Mayors Need Control of Urban Schools | ||
| Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that mayors should take control of big-city school districts where academic performance is suffering. | ||
| 03/31/2009 | The Boston Globe | |
| 2008 Arkansas School Performance Report | ||
| Copies of the 2008 Arkansas School Performance Report Card are in the mail, soon to be delivered to parents across the state. The Arkansas Department of Education, working with Gov. Mike Beebe, releases copies of Arkansas School Performance Reports annually as required by state law to provide members of the public with accurate information about the performance of their schools. A new feature on this year's report card is a "Gains Rating." This measure is an index representing the academic growth of a school's students. The Gains Model uses students' scores on Arkansas' benchmark exams over a two-year period to determine growth. | ||
| 03/31/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Study Finds Results of MPS and Voucher School Students are Similar | ||
| The first research since the mid-1990s comparing the academic progress of students in Milwaukee's precedent-setting private school voucher program with students in Milwaukee Public Schools shows no major differences in success between the two groups. | ||
| 03/26/2009 | Milwaukee Journal Sentinen | |
| State Seeks to gauge Whether Students or Teachers are Lagging | ||
| A new education measurement in Massachusetts will track the performance of individual students as they advance from one grade to the next. It could shed light on who is falling short, teacher or pupil, and lead to fundamental changes in the way students are taught. The system also could lead to earlier interventions for students who appear to be lagging behind and enable the state to more closely monitor the academic growth of groups of classmates with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. | ||
| 03/25/2009 | The Boston Globe | |
| Arkansas' Annual Improvement Gains Levels for Grades 3-8 Presentation | ||
| This is a powerpoint with an explaination of the Gains Model. | ||
| 03/25/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Reading, Math Software Found to Have Little Effect on Scores | ||
| For the second year in a row, a controversial $14.4 million federal study testing the effectiveness of reading and math software programs has found few significant learning differences between students who used the technology and those taught using other methods. | ||
| 03/18/2009 | Education Week | |
| Study of Charters in 8 State Finds Mixed Effects | ||
| The Arkansas State Board of Education approved an application from the Lincoln School District to start a conversion charter school at its meeting Monday. | ||
| 03/18/2009 | Education Week | |
| State Approves Lincoln Charter School Request | ||
| A new study of hundreds of charter schools in eight states contains both good news and bad news for supporters of the nation's roughly 4,600 public charter schools. Contrary to critics' fears, charter schools are not more racially segregated and do not appear to be skimming the best students from local public systems. | ||
| 03/18/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Taking the Measure of Youth Obesity | ||
| Next month, health regulators in Massachusetts are expected to mandate that, just like in Arkansas, every public school student should be weighed and measured so parents can receive a snapshot showing whether their child is headed toward a serious medical problem. | ||
| 03/16/2009 | Boston Globe | |
| Vouchers on the Line | ||
| In a major speech this week outlining his vision for education, President Obama exhorted Washington to get beyond partisanship and petty bickering and to forgo old debates for ideas that really work for children. It's exactly the right sentiment and one Congress should embrace in deciding the future of the D.C. voucher program and 1,700 children from low-income families enrolled in it. | ||
| 03/14/2009 | The Washington Post | |
| 4-Day School Week Gains Momentum Amid Recession | ||
| With the nation's school districts strapped for cash, more are considering a schedule that delights students and makes working parents cringe: Class only four days a week. | ||
| 03/12/2009 | Associated Press | |
| Stimulus Bill Spurs Focus on Teachers | ||
| The recently enacted economic-stimulus bill requires every state to take steps to improve teacher effectiveness, as well as to tackle one of the most pervasive problems in K-12 education: inequities in access to top teaching talent for poor and minority children. | ||
| 03/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| Effect of Stimulus on NCLB Renewal Mulled | ||
| Even as states and school districts prepare to absorb billions of dollars in economic-stimulus aid for education, policymakers and analysts are quietly discussing whether the infusion of federal cash may reshape the landscape around reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. | ||
| 03/11/2009 | Education Week | |
| 1 in 50 American Children Experiences Homelessness | ||
| One of every 50 American children experiences homelessness, according to a new report that says most states have inadequate plans to address the worsening and often-overlooked problem. The report being released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness gives Connecticut the best ranking. At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Louisiana. | ||
| 03/11/2009 | Associated Press | |
| Obama Outlines Plan for Education Overhaul | ||
| President Obama called for sweeping changes in American education on Tuesday, urging states to lift limits on charter schools and improve the quality of early childhood education while also signaling that he intends to make good on his campaign promise of linking teacher pay to performance. | ||
| 03/10/2009 | The New York Times | |
| U.S. To Nation's Schools: Spend Fast, Keep Receipts | ||
| Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, sent a message to the nation's school officials last week: Heads up! We'll be sending you billions of dollars by month's end. Spend the money quickly but wisely. And keep receipts; we'll be asking. | ||
| 03/08/2009 | The New York Times | |
| What to Learn: 'Core Knowledge' or '21st Century Skills'? | ||
| A small group of outspoken education scholars is challenging that assumption, saying the push for 21st-century skills is taking a dangerous bite out of precious classroom time that could be better spent learning deep, essential content. | ||
| 03/05/2009 | USA Today | |
| Realizing the Promise: How State Policy Can Support Alternative Certification Programs | ||
| It's been long understood that teacher quality is the number one determinant of student success that's under schools' control. Crucial to increasing the pool of talented teachers are alternative certification programs, which, done right, streamline entry to the classroom for adroit teacher candidates in high need areas or high need subjects. Unfortunately, as we found last year, few programs are done right. | ||
| 03/05/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute - The Education Gadfly | |
| National Standards Gain Steam | ||
| National standards-once the untouchable "third rail" of American education policy-now have the backing of the nation's governors, a growing number of education leaders, and the U.S. secretary of education. | ||
| 03/04/2009 | Education Week | |
| 'What Works' Guide Weighs In on RTI | ||
| The federal Institute of Education Sciences has released a practice guide on reading instruction and "response to intervention," lending its stamp of approval to a process that has already been widely adopted by schools and districts. | ||
| 03/02/2009 | Education Week | |
| Charters Offer More Choices in Harlem, but Stir Concern for Public Schools | ||
| Charter schools, which are publicly financed but have latitude in how they operate, are now a major force in the community, with 24 of them serving 6,000 children (across the city, there are about 24,000 students enrolled in 78 charter schools). The neighborhood includes about 70 traditional public schools, 14 Catholic schools and 16 other private schools. | ||
| 02/28/2009 | The New York Times | |
| State Seeks Teachers Among Newly Jobless | ||
| The Arkansas Department of Education is looking for new teachers among the ranks of college-educated workers who have lost their jobs in business and industry because of the soured economy. | ||
| 02/27/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Walton Family Contributes $2.9 Million for Math, Science Initiative Program at UALR | ||
| The Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville will provide a $2.9 million grant to help the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Sciences (AAIMS) match the $13.2 million received last year from ExxonMobil to participate in the National Math and Science Initiative. | ||
| 02/26/2009 | University of Arkansas at Little Rock | |
| Teacher Recruitment | ||
| As more and more Arkansans find themselves facing an uncertain financial future, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) encourages individuals to consider teaching as a career. Options are available for those with a college degree or, in some technical areas, without. | ||
| 02/25/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Obama Spotlights Education in Speech to Congress | ||
| President Barack Obama last night used his first congressional address to pledge to curb dropout rates, increase college-going rates, and fund programs that help close the achievement gap and improve teacher performance. | ||
| 02/25/2009 | Education Week | |
| Rush to Pump Out Stimulus Cash Highlights Disparities in Funding | ||
| The gusher of new federal education spending in the economic-stimulus bill signed into law last week will be piped into states and school districts with little or no regard for how badly they need the money. The measure could leave some states without enough money to restore all K-12 funding cuts, while others see a cash windfall. | ||
| 02/25/2009 | Education Week | |
| Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not | ||
| But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the country, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown's class do not have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget all class long if they want. | ||
| 02/24/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Breaking Down the Stimulus for Arkansas | ||
| Arkansas is estimated to receive $2.1 billion. The breakdown may distribute $370.7 million for education, $133.8 million for Title 1 funds, and $113.5 for special education spending. | ||
| 02/22/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Education Top Priority for Legislators | ||
| In addition to the lottery bill, which is expected to have a complete draft be next week, there are about 30 other education bills in the works. These include teacher's health benefits and helping schools with children in military families. | ||
| 02/21/2009 | The Morning News | |
| Lottery Money May Fund Existing Scholarship Program | ||
| — and expand — an existing scholarship program instead of creating a new program, House Speaker Robbie Wills and Gov. Mike Beebe said Friday. | ||
| 02/20/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| The Accountability Illusion | ||
| This study examines the No Child Left Behind Act system and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) rules. There were 36 real schools selected and evaluated under different AYP rules of various states to determine the consistency of AYP standards. The analysis revealed that the same school might meet AYP standards in one state and fail in another, thus highlighting clear inconsistencies in standards across states. | ||
| 02/19/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Legislators Roll Out Bill to Govern Lottery | ||
| Legislative leaders unveiled to a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday a 50-page draft lottery-structure bill containing provisions with the stated goal of creating public confidence. | ||
| 02/19/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| The Accountability Illusion | ||
| This study examines the No Child Left Behind Act system and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) rules. There were 36 real schools selected and evaluated under different AYP rules of various states to determine the consistency of AYP standards. The analysis revealed that the same school might meet AYP standards in one state and fail in another, thus highlighting clear inconsistencies in standards across states. | ||
| 02/19/2009 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Education Department: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 | ||
| Here you will find information about the ARRA, including a fact sheet, budget information (including state allocations) and the latest news about the stimulus package. | ||
| 02/18/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Duncan Hails Passage of President's Stimulus Package, Cites "Historic Opportunity to Create Jobs and Advance Reform" | ||
| This press release breaks down the $100 billion that the ARRA provides in education funding. | ||
| 02/18/2009 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes | ||
| "I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C," he said. "That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A." | ||
| 02/17/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Lottery Plans Ready for Release, Senator Says | ||
| The leader of the state Senate said Tuesday that long-awaited details of a private working group's lottery proposals will be released today in a public meeting. | ||
| 02/18/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Layoff Policies Said to Hurt Teacher Effectiveness | ||
| With the growing financial strain on districts putting more novices in Mr. Nicolas' unenviable position, researchers and policymakers have begun to question the human-capital costs of "last hired, first fired" layoff policies. | ||
| 02/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Stimulus Aid to Schools a Management Challenge | ||
| The $787 billion economic-stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed into law today presents an unprecedented opportunity--and an unprecedented management challenge--for new U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. This article has a pie chart that breaks down the education piece to see where the money is going. | ||
| 02/17/2009 | Education Week | |
| Can Merit Pay for Michigan Teachers Boost Student Performance? | ||
| Teacher pay has been based almost entirely on seniority and education for the last 80 years. But at least three Michigan school districts have some form of merit pay, and report mostly positive results -- although they all shy away from using the term "merit pay." | ||
| 02/16/2009 | Detroit Free Press | |
| For Education Chief, Stimulus Means Power, Money and Risk | ||
| The $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges in the economic stimulus bill could transform Arne Duncan into an exceptional figure in the history of federal education policy: a secretary of education loaded with money and the power to spend large chunks of it as he sees fit. | ||
| 02/16/2009 | The New York Times | |
| Plan Calls for Judging Teachers on Results | ||
| For the first time, Ohio would judge teachers on how much their students are learning under Gov. Ted Strickland's sweeping education proposal. | ||
| 02/15/2009 | Dispatch Politics | |
| Congress Approves Economic Stimulus Package | ||
| After days of tense congressional negotiations, Congress today approved a nearly $800 billion economic-stimulus bill that would provide some $100 billion in education funding. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the measure early next week. | ||
| 02/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| Teacher Licensing Bill Moves Forward in Utah Senate | ||
| What makes good teachers: traditional training or experience in the fields they teach? Utah senators spent more than a half hour debating that question Thursday before giving preliminary approval to SB48. The bill would allow people with bachelor's degrees to become licensed teachers by passing competency tests in the subjects they wish to teach and/or demonstrating skills in those areas. | ||
| 02/12/2009 | The Salt Lake Tribune | |
| Ark. Lawmaker Drafts Lottery Bill Aiding Students | ||
| Revenues from Arkansas' lottery should go toward creating a new scholarship program for students who earn a 2.5 grade-point average or better or score 19 or higher on the ACT, House Speaker Robbie Wills told lawmakers. | ||
| 02/10/2009 | Associated Press - Forbes | |
| Teach for America Helps At-Risk Schools, Students Make the Grade | ||
| Susan Reid, the jovial principal at Compton Drew Middle School just west of the St. Louis Science Center, can't say enough good about the instructors from Teach for America. | ||
| 02/10/2009 | St. Louis Beacon | |
| Panel Backs Adding Teacher Benefits | ||
| A legislative committee endorsed a proposed rule that would bolster benefits for about 28,000 Arkansas Teacher Retirement System members. | ||
| 02/10/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Summary of Lottery Details Released | ||
| In a memo to House members late Monday afternoon, House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, provided an overview of draft legislation to create Arkansas' voter-approved lottery for college scholarships. | ||
| 02/09/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Scores Found Unaffected by Teacher-Training Route | ||
| Students who have teachers certified through alternative-training programs do no worse in mathematics or reading achievement than students whose teachers have been certified by traditional teacher education programs, according to a study released by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. | ||
| 02/09/2009 | Education Week | |
| Technology Grant | ||
| The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) learned today that it will receive a $5 million grant over the next three years from the U.S. Department of Education to further its development and use of technology for instruction, data collection, analysis and use by educators, researchers and the public. | ||
| 02/09/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Challenging the Myths About Merit Pay for Teachers | ||
| Trying to determine what is best for our students is a difficult task, as there is little conclusive evidence as to what the best strategies are to promote high levels of student achievement. However, there is one area where the evidence is clear-effective teaching is the single most important school-related factor in determining student success. | ||
| 02/08/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Transfer Limit Based on Race Splits Schools | ||
| Four rural, mostly white school districts in Hot Spring County are being asked to defend the race restrictions in a school transfer law that they'd rather see changed. | ||
| 01/25/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Siloam Springs, UA Prep for Merit Pay Test | ||
| An experimental plan will help identify any connection between teacher-performance pay and student achievement, said a researcher from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. | ||
| 01/25/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| School Leaders Target Salary Reform Toward Newer Teachers | ||
| Leaders in a handful of school districts are pondering the idea of "front-loading" teacher compensation by paying novices more than they would typically earn under traditional salary schedules. | ||
| 01/28/2009 | Education Week | |
| Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education | ||
| The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation's school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education's current budget. | ||
| 01/27/2009 | New York Times | |
| States Get D-Plus on Teacher Reviews | ||
| States are not doing what it takes to keep good teachers and remove bad ones, a national study found. | ||
| 01/29/2009 | Associated Press | |
| Charter Schools Score in Budget | ||
| Governor Deval Patrick, who has consistently opposed raising the cap on the number of charter schools, will dramatically change course in the budget he releases today, allowing for more charters in low-performing districts as long as these new schools try to help the most vulnerable students. | ||
| 01/28/2009 | Boston Globe | |
| Committee Endorses Bill to Enroll Underage Kindergarteners | ||
| A Senate panel endorsed a measure Wednesday that would allow some children enrolled in pre-kindergarten this school year to enroll in kindergarten in the fall even if they don't meet the age requirement set by the Legislature in 2007. | ||
| 01/28/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Teacher Monitoring Faulted | ||
| States are not doing what it takes to keep good teachers and remove bad ones, a national study found. Arkansas was one of eight states to receive an overall grade of C- in the analysis, which put Arkansas slightly above the national average. Seven states ranked higher than Arkansas. | ||
| 01/30/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Senate Bill Would Require Uniform Springs Break Dates | ||
| A common spring break, limiting the time on superintendent contracts and a lifetime teaching license to teachers who retire after 25 years are some of the proposed education bills the Arkansas General Assembly is considering. | ||
| 02/01/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Bill Would Offer School Vouchers to All Students | ||
| Georgia would be the first state to offer vouchers to all public schools students under a Republican plan introduced in the state Senate on Monday. | ||
| 02/02/2009 | Atlanta Journal-Constitution | |
| Teacher's Staff Training Deemed Fragmented | ||
| Although American teachers spend more working hours in classrooms than do instructors in some of the top-performing European and Asian countries, U.S. students routinely post below-average scores on international exams. | ||
| 02/04/2009 | Education Week | |
| Lawmakers Debate Expanding Teacher Pay Program | ||
| When lawmakers decide whether to go ahead with Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposal to expand Minnesota's pay-for-performance program for teachers, they'll have to rely mostly on perceptions of how the program is working rather than on data showing actual improvements. | ||
| 02/03/2009 | Education Week | |
| KIPP's Entry Into Pre-K World Takes Some Adjustment | ||
| As the closely watched Knowledge Is Power Program expands into the early-childhood arena, its leaders are aiming to build schools that are sensitive to the learning needs of young children, without deviating from KIPP's mission to develop capable, college-bound students. | ||
| 02/04/2009 | Education Week | |
| Advanced Placement Report | ||
| At 33.3 percent, Arkansas remains one of the states with the highest percentage of public high school 2008 graduates who have taken at least one Advanced Placement (AP) Exam during their high school careers, according to a report released by the College Board today. | ||
| 02/05/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| State Students Make Strides on Rigorous Test | ||
| More than 33 percent of the Arkansas high school class of 2008 took at least one Advanced Placement test in their school careers, one of the highest percentages in the nation. | ||
| 02/05/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Ark. School Experiments with Same-Gender Classes | ||
| A public school district in northwest Arkansas is experimenting with teaching boys and girls separately, beginning with fourth graders. | ||
| 12/22/2008 | Associated Press - Education Week | |
| Lincoln Schools Get $500K to Try Out Merit-Based Pay | ||
| The school district recently received a $500,000 Rewarding Excellence for Academic Performance grant from the Arkansas Department of Education, Lincoln Superintendent Frank Holman said at the Board of Education meeting Monday. | ||
| 01/20/2009 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Siloam Springs: Merit Pay Gains OK of School Employees | ||
| Siloam Springs school faculty and staff overwhelmingly approved a performance pay plan in a district wide election held last week. Now the district needs the money to pay for it. | ||
| 01/20/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Stimulus Gives Schools $142B - With Strings | ||
| The USA's public schools stand to be the biggest winners in Congress' $825 billion economic stimulus plan unveiled last week. Schools are scheduled to receive nearly $142 billion over the next two years. | ||
| 01/20/2009 | USA Today | |
| Dee Cox Named Special Assistant to Commissioner | ||
| Dee Cox has been named special assistant to the commissioner at the Arkansas Department of Education by Commissioner of Education Dr. Ken James. | ||
| 01/20/2009 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| School-Choice Challenge Gets Date for Trial | ||
| The constitutional challenge to a state enrollment law that bans any transfer that would lead to more racially segregated schools is headed to trial after a federal judge on Wednesday set a November court date. | ||
| 01/22/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| State OK'd to Change Labeling for Schools | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday that it will allow Arkansas to use a new way to work with academically troubled public schools. | ||
| 01/09/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Arkansas House Speaker Names Committee Leaders | ||
| Representative Bill Abernathy will serve as chairman of the House Education Committee. | ||
| 01/12/2009 | Associated Press - WXVT | |
| Nothing But Praise for Duncan in Senate Hearing | ||
| ’s choice to serve as secretary of education, coasted through his confirmation hearing today on a wave of bipartisan support from the Senate education committee. | ||
| 01/13/2009 | Education Week | |
| AR State Lawmaker Gilbert Baker Files Legislation to Enhance Transparency in Higher Education Funding, Spending | ||
| An Arkansas state legislator has filed a bill that would require more transparancy in both spending and funding of state higher education. | ||
| 01/14/2009 | AHN | |
| Excerpts from Beebe's Speech | ||
| ’s State of the State address: The complete text of the speech is available at www2.arkansasonline.com/ legislature. | ||
| 01/14/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Luna Supports Lifting Limit on New Charter Schools | ||
| Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna is supporting an effort to raise the cap on the number of new charter schools that can open each year, saying the limit could deny children some educational opportunities. Idaho law limits the number of new charter schools to six a year. Luna said more than 50 charter school petitions are in the works, and 12 of them are ready or almost ready. | ||
| 01/10/2009 | Idaho Statesman | |
| A Strong Case for More Charter Schools | ||
| Compared with students in traditional schools in Boston, charter school students are doing significantly better in math and English, according to the analysis by researchers from Harvard and MIT. | ||
| 01/07/2009 | The Boston Globe | |
| Duncan to Confront Host of Challenges at Ed. Department | ||
| As the man tapped to be the next U.S. secretary of education, Arne Duncan faces a long list of difficult and complex tasks, some of which he has no background in handling. | ||
| 12/30/2008 | Education Week | |
| Internet Access Turns School Buses Into Rolling Classrooms | ||
| As part of his economic-stimulus plan, President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to wire more schools to provide high-speed Internet access. Ethan Clement, a student in rural Arkansas, has some advice: Don't forget to wire the buses. | ||
| 12/29/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| EStem Leaders: Pay Plan is Dandy | ||
| Leaders of the fledgling eStem Public Charter Schools in downtown Little Rock are pointing to their employee bonus-pay plan - worth up to $10,000 to each teacher - as a possible model for the state and nation. | ||
| 01/03/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| State, 4 Districts Added to School-Choice Lawsuit | ||
| ’s School Choice Act, which has prevented their white children from legally transferring to mostly white schools, are now suing the state Board of Education and four more school districts. | ||
| 01/06/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Clerk Says LR School Case Active | ||
| Ten months after hearing oral arguments on whether the Little Rock School District is entitled to unitary status, a federal appeals court panel sent assurances Monday that it is continuing to work on the case. | ||
| 01/06/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| 50-State Report Card | ||
| Quality Counts 2009 is the 13th edition of Education Week's series of annual report cards tracking state education policies and outcomes. | ||
| 01/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Quality Counts 2009 | ||
| Here is the link to the Quality Counts 2009 information. The first link, State Report Cards Map, is particularly interesting and provides a quick overview of each state score. | ||
| 01/08/2009 | Education Week | |
| Report Ranks Arkansas 10th in Education | ||
| Arkansas ranks 10th in the nation in a new report that evaluates states' public education systems. | ||
| 01/07/2009 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Siloam Springs: Schools Take Look at Merit Pay Plan | ||
| A committee of Siloam Springs educators wants to use an experimental performance-pay plan to increase student achievement and attract qualified young teachers to the district. | ||
| 01/08/2009 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| EStem leaders: Pay plan is dandy | ||
| Gary W. Ritter on merit pay. | ||
| 01/03/2009 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| University of Arkansas Professors Advise President-elect to Put Children First in Reform | ||
| Three U of A professors have written a paper offering advice to President-elect Obama on what education reform measures should pursue during his administration. | ||
| 12/10/2008 | University of Arkansas Daily Headlines | |
| Arkansas Teacher of the Year 2009 | ||
| Susan Waggener, a math and business education teacher at West Memphis High School, was named the 2009 Teacher of the Year. | ||
| 12/10/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Walton Foundation Grants $4.5 Million to State Center | ||
| The new Arkansas Public School Resource Center, formed to provide assistance to open enrollment charter schools and rural school districts, is the recipient of a $4.5 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville. | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| New Lawmaker's Bill Weighs in on Annual Sessions | ||
| Andrea Lea of Russellville won't officially take her seat as a state representative until next month, but she threw a curve ball Wednesday on a legislative pitch to change the way lawmakers hold annual sessions. | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| American Children Left Behind | ||
| The 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was released on Tuesday, and it contained both good news and bad news for the U.S. The TIMSS tests students in fourth and eighth grades in math and science. | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Forbes | |
| School for $6 a Month | ||
| It's not that I didn't believe James Tooley's books and articles asserting that an astonishing number of poor children in developing countries are being decently (and sometimes superbly) educated by a little-noticed army of low-budget private schools that receive no government support and, indeed, are paid for by those kids' own parents. | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Core Problem: Out-of-Field Teaching Persists in Key Academic Courses and High-Poverty Schools | ||
| This study starts with an unassailable premise: "Teachers cannot teach what they do not know." Yet teachers are still being assigned to teach subjects they haven't mastered themselves, finds this valuable EdTrust report. | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Hopes, Fears, and Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2008 | ||
| Reality, a product of the National Charter School Research Project, addresses one fundamental question: "Should charter schools be more different than alike?" | ||
| 12/11/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Legislative Efforts Paying Off in Teacher Equity | ||
| Efforts by the Legislature to ensure poor and minority children are not disproportionately taught by inexperienced or under qualified teachers appear to be working, according to a report released by the Arkansas Department of Education. | ||
| 12/14/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| 100% of School Districts Apply for Technology Funds, Official Say | ||
| Every public school district across Arkansas applied for a federally administered technology assistance program this school year, a move applauded Monday by lawmakers who recalled more than $500,000 lost three years ago because districts didn't apply. | ||
| 12/16/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Obama Picks Duncan for Education Secretary | ||
| President-elect Barack Obama today intends to introduce Chicago Public Schools' chief executive officer Arne Duncan as his nominee to be the next U.S. secretary of education, sources with knowledge of the choice have told Education Week. | ||
| 12/16/2008 | Education Week | |
| The One-Room School Bus | ||
| Arkansas makes it on The New York Times' 8th Annual Year in Ideas. | ||
| 12/31/1969 | The New York Times | |
| Five Thoughts About Arne Duncan | ||
| The Flypaper gives us their five thoughts on Arne Duncan. | ||
| 12/16/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Business Lessons Guide Training for Charter Leaders | ||
| A new program in Minnesota to prepare leaders for charter and alternative schools aims to use lessons offered by business executives. | ||
| 12/03/2008 | Education Week | |
| Applicants Flock to Teacher Corps for Needy Areas | ||
| In its 18th year, Teach for America has emerged as the most popular nonprofit service organization among college seniors in the United States. | ||
| 12/06/2008 | Washington Post | |
| Arkansas Department of Education Meets | ||
| The Dollarway School District appears to be on course to being removed from the list of school districts failing to meet adequate yearly progress, the state Board of Education heard Monday. The board also agreed to give the Hughes school District more time to solve academic problems and decided it needed more information before deciding the fate of a debt-ridden charter school in Little Rock. | ||
| 12/09/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Education Blogs Provide Platform for New Voices in National Education Debate | ||
| The Internet is evening out the playing field for education commentators and analysts by making the traditional trappings of power and influence obsolete, writes Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in his new analysis of education web logs (blogs) published in Education Next. | ||
| 12/09/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| Debt Imperils Charter School | ||
| The Dreamland Academy of Performing and Communication Arts, a public charter elementary school in southwest Little Rock, owes about $264,000 to state and federal agencies, jeopardizing the school's charter to operate. | ||
| 12/08/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Halter Encouraged by Lawmakers' Belated Enthusiasm for Lottery | ||
| Last year, state lawmakers spurned Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's overtures to refer a state lottery amendment to voters, forcing Halter to gather signatures to place the measure on the ballot. | ||
| 12/07/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Proposed Amendment Would Undo Annual Sessions | ||
| Voters overwhelmingly approved annual legislative sessions during last month's general election. Now a lawmaker wants colleagues to consider putting things back the way they were. | ||
| 12/06/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Better Data Seen as Vital to Improving Nation's Schools | ||
| Imagine the research possibilities if every student in the country carried a "virtual backpack" stuffed with statistics on his or her entire educational history. | ||
| 12/05/2008 | Education Week | |
| Ark. Lawmakers Wary of Setbacks on Schools | ||
| Entering their first regular session of the post-Lake View era, lawmakers say they want to avoid backsliding into another years-long school funding battle. | ||
| 12/08/2008 | Education Week (AP) | |
| Greene Applies Baseball Techniques to Education | ||
| form better. | ||
| 12/06/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Plans Advance to Link NAEP to College, Work Readiness | ||
| Federal officials have taken a major step toward using the test known as "the nation's report card" to judge 12th graders' preparation for college and the job market. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | Education Week | |
| Gates Urges U.S. to Be Educational Change Agent | ||
| Bill Gates, the co-founder of the world's largest philanthropy, this week called on President-elect Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress to expand support for education and make the federal government "a dynamic agent of school reform," even as the nation struggles through grim economic times. | ||
| 12/03/2008 | Education Week | |
| Can You Recognize an Effective Teacher When You Recruit One? | ||
| This technical study by a quartet of research heavy-hitters examines whether various lesser studied teacher characteristics (versus the traditional ones like graduate education and certification) predict teacher effectiveness. | ||
| 12/04/2008 | The Education Gadfly | |
| Study of Voluntary Merit Pay Program Shows High Participation, but its Effectiveness Still Unclear | ||
| It remains unclear whether the merit pay program for teachers in Texas is yielding the results its proponents have advocated - higher student achievement. | ||
| 12/05/2008 | The Dallas Morning News | |
| Lawmakers Balk at Using State Dollars for School-Based Mental Health | ||
| A legislative panel balked Monday at using state money to make up for cuts in federal funding to the state Department of Education's school-based mental health program. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Human Capital Key Worry for Reformers | ||
| A growing number of education stakeholders are zeroing in on developing "human capital" as the key strategy to improve student learning. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | Education Week | |
| State Gets Failing Grade in College Affordability | ||
| Higher education in Arkansas and across the country is less affordable than ever, according to a report released today by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. | ||
| 12/03/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Hopkins to Direct Teachers' Investing | ||
| The trustees for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System hired former state Senator George Hopkins as its $153,000-a-year executive director. | ||
| 12/03/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| School Law Will Need to Be Revised Next Year, Lawmakers Says | ||
| With a U.S. Supreme Court that put the constitutionality of Arkansas' school choice law into question, and a pending federal lawsuit also challenging the state law, the Legislature likely will have to revisit the issue in the 2009 session. | ||
| 12/03/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Major Study Urges U.S. to Retool School Finance | ||
| When school systems spend more money on wealthy students than they do on poor students, more money on electives than on core academic courses, and more on Advanced Placement program classes than on remedial instruction, the education finance system is out of kilter. | ||
| 12/02/2008 | Education Week | |
| Focus on SREB State's Responses to the Economic Slowdown: Budget Actions Affecting Education in 2008-2009 | ||
| This SREB report summarizes the actions related to budgeting and education taken in each SREB state. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | Southern Regional Education Board | |
| Bentonville Ranks Highest for First-Time Teacher Pay | ||
| The Bentonville School District is paying Arkansas' highest salary for a beginning public school teacher this year at $42,230, according to the state Department of Education. | ||
| 11/29/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Group Says Norfork School Works Smarter | ||
| Officials at the Norfork School District in north-central Arkansas were a little puzzled at the phone call inviting them to a conference this month in the nation's capitol. | ||
| 11/30/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lawmakers Face Tough Decisions in Preparing for Lottery | ||
| Earlier this year, the Tennessee Legislature lowered academic requirements so more college students could keep the awards they received through the state's scholarship lottery, a change developed after months of debate over what to do with an unintended $460 million surplus in the program. | ||
| 11/30/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Professor is Leading Ed. Policy Review | ||
| Darling-Hammond was one of several Obama campaign voices on K-12. | ||
| 11/26/2008 | Education Week | |
| Bus Safety Ideas Sought by Legislator | ||
| State Senator Kim Hendren aims to make every driver stop for buses loading and unloading school children. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Paddling in Schools: 'Board of Education' Pretty Much Retired | ||
| Today, 22 states allow a form of corporal punishment, while 28 states have banned the punishment. Arkansas is one state that still allows corporal punishment to be used in schools. | ||
| 12/01/2008 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Hispanic Scholars Program Helps Rogers Students | ||
| Hispanic students who performed well on standardized tests, but whose families do not speak English at home, can learn more about the American college and scholarship system. | ||
| 11/30/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Lawmakers Consider Teacher Performance Pay | ||
| Some Utah teachers' pay could be based partly on student test score gains if a proposed bill becomes law. | ||
| 11/20/2008 | The Salt Lake Tribune | |
| Board Not Reaching Educator Demand | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe's budget proposes to place a board that awards housing grants to teachers under the Department of Education, a shift that raised questions with legislators Monday. | ||
| 11/25/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Math Teachers Barely Ahead of Students | ||
| Math can be hard enough, but imagine the difficulty when a teacher is just one chapter ahead of the students. | ||
| 11/25/2008 | Education Week, Teacher Magazine | |
| iPods Help Improve Idaho Scores | ||
| A sixth-grade teacher in Idaho can load lessons enhanced with video clips, homework assignments, quizzes, videos, music, books on tape and more on the class iPods for use in all subjects he teachers. | ||
| 11/24/2008 | Education Week, Teacher Magazine | |
| Adjusting to Test Takers | ||
| Computer-adaptive testing addresses individual needs, but cost and logistical challenges persist. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Feds Say No to Testing Experiment | ||
| The federal government will not let two Utah school districts experiment with a new testing system at the expense of No Child Left Behind requirements. | ||
| 11/20/2008 | The Salt Lake Tribune | |
| Arkansas' First School Thought to Set in a Northeaster Cave 191 Years Ago | ||
| Almost 200 years ago, children trekked through woods into a dark canyon in the easternmost reaches of the Ozark Mountains. They did this regularly for years, assembling in a cave to learn. | ||
| 11/23/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Senate Bill Filed to Structure State Lottery | ||
| A state senator who filed legislation to set up a state-run lottery for college scholarships said an independent board or commission, not a state agency, should be in charge of running the games. | ||
| 11/22/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| What Works Process Called Scientifically Sound | ||
| An independent panel of experts concludes that the U.S. Department of Education's much criticized What Works Clearinghouse is doing a "reasonable job" of reviewing and rating the research evidence on the effectiveness of programs and practices in education. | ||
| 11/21/2008 | Education Week | |
| What Happens When States Have Genuine Alternative Certification? | ||
| In the case of alternative teacher certification (AC) programs, when they are what they seem, they're pretty stellar. | ||
| 11/13/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Teachers Win Bonuses at High-Need Schools | ||
| Teachers at 33 high-need secondary schools across New York City will receive bonuses of several thousand dollars each, totaling $6.5 million, as a reward for student gains on school report cards. | ||
| 11/14/2008 | The New York Times | |
| LR District Looks at Slashing $10 Million | ||
| Little Rock Superintendent Linda Watson proposed carving as much as $10 million out of next year's school district budget. | ||
| 11/21/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Panels Noncommittal on Sales Tax Holiday, Private Prisons | ||
| Less than two months before the 2009 session, a pair of legislative committees balked at endorsing two ideas that likely will get broader debate when the Legislature convenes in January - a back-to-school sales tax holiday and privatization of prisons. | ||
| 11/21/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Head of Teachers' Union Offers to Talk on Tenure and Merit Pay | ||
| Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that given the economic crisis, her union would be willing to discuss new approaches to issues like teacher tenure and merit pay. | ||
| 11/17/2008 | The New York Times | |
| Lawmakers Face Decisions on Education Funding | ||
| State Senator Kim Hendren will be committed, in the rest of his time in the Arkansas Legislature, to offering support for a UAMS satellite campus and to working on education reform, among other initiatives, the recently re-elected senator said. | ||
| 11/18/2008 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Walton Foundation Gives $300,000 to Medical School | ||
| The Walton Family Foundation gave $300,000 toward a Northwest Arkansas satellite campus of the University of Arkansas Medical School. | ||
| 11/17/2008 | The Morning News | |
| President-Elect Gets School Policy Advice | ||
| While President-elect Barack Obama's transition team works behind closed doors, education groups are openly trying to influence the next administration's K-12 policies. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Arkansan to Lead School-Law Study | ||
| Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James, who took office this week as president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, is leading an effort to tweak the federal No Child Left Behind law requirements during the first 100 days of the Obama administration. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lawmakers Eye Education Funding | ||
| State lawmakers reviewing school funding proposals questioned whether $500 million in funds approved two years ago to repair dilapidated school facilities are being distributed in an efficient manner. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Spending of Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned | ||
| Nearly seven years into its implementation, little information exists on whether the $3 billion the federal government spends annually on teacher quality as part of the No Child Left Behind Act has measurably improved the effectiveness of the nation's educators, a report scheduled released concludes. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Weighted-Student Funding Preferred by Educators, Study Finds | ||
| Allocating money to schools using a "student based" or "weighted student" formula requires more work for both central-office officials and school-level employees than traditional methods do, a new study has found. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Ark. School Buildings Program Draws Lawmakers' Ire | ||
| A half-billion dollar program to build and repair school buildings around the state isn't getting money to districts quickly enough, a pair of lawmakers complained. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Beebe Releases Education Plan | ||
| Legislators struggled to get their arms around Gov. Mike Beebe's proposed $2.68 billion Public School Fund budget as details were released for the first time. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| What to Read into the Reading First Study | ||
| The Institute of Education Science's final Reading First evaluation report is out today, and the news is mixed. | ||
| 11/19/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Lawmakers Question Scholarship Surplus | ||
| As Arkansas lawmakers prepare to hammer out enabling legislation for a lottery to fund college scholarships, some are questioning why the state's scholarship fund is already running at a surplus. | ||
| 11/16/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Arkansas Education Matters: Volume 1, Number 3 | ||
| The November edition o f Arkansas Education Matters includes a message from the commissioner, Milken educator awards, the new House Education Committee members, and information on the Arkansas Greater Graduation Project. | ||
| 11/13/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| KIPP Success Cited, With Caveats | ||
| A review of research on the high-profile KIPP network finds promising academic results compared with traditional public schools, though it argues that "popular accounts" have at times overhyped the schools' apparent success. | ||
| 11/12/2008 | Education Week | |
| ADHE Gets Grant from Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation | ||
| The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation recently granted $300,000 over a two-year period to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education for a communications campaign encouraging Arkansas students to pursue postsecondary education. | ||
| 11/12/2008 | Arkansas Matters | |
| State Budget Chills Send Shivers Through K-12 Circles | ||
| Arkansas is mentioned, along with other states, in this EdWeek article about budget cuts and the effect on schools. | ||
| 11/11/2008 | Education Week | |
| Education-Related Ballot Items Reflect Fiscal, Policy Concerns | ||
| EdWeek gives an overview of the education-related ballot items across the U.S. | ||
| 11/11/2008 | Education Week | |
| In Florida, Virtual School Could Make Classroom History | ||
| Thousands of Florida students may ditch public elementary and middle schools next year in favor of online classes at home - an option that could change the face of public education. | ||
| 11/10/2008 | Orlando Sentinel | |
| A School Chief Takes on Tenure, Stirring a Fight | ||
| Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging chancellor of the Washington public schools, thinks teacher tenure may be great for adults, those who go into teaching to get summer vacations and great health insurance, for instance. But it hurts children, she says, by making incompetent instructors harder to fire. | ||
| 11/12/2008 | The New York Times | |
| Thousands of Families Shut Out of Pre-K Programs | ||
| State prekindergarten programs reserved for low-income students are squeezing out thousands of middle-class families unable to afford early education, according to a national study released. | ||
| 11/13/2008 | Associated Press | |
| Charters Lead State's Traditional Schools in Achievement for Poor Children, Survey Finds | ||
| Four Southern California charters and one L.A. Unified campus are among the top 15 servign students living in poverty. | ||
| 11/11/2008 | Los Angeles Times | |
| Conway's Ray Simon Wraps Up Tenure in Washington | ||
| An Arkansan and chief proponent of the No Child Left Behind Act will leave his post come January while hoping the controversial education reform law won't leave with him. | ||
| 11/08/2008 | The Cabin | |
| Kenney Looks Back on State Education Reform | ||
| State Representative Mike Kenney, who served as a first-ever Republican chairman of the House Education Committee, did not seek re-election this year because of term limits. But he's proud of helping to see the state through a rough period that resulted in significant education reforms. | ||
| 11/09/2008 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| Lawmakers Scrambling to Adjust to Idea of Annual Sessions | ||
| Some really didn't think it would pass, but now that it has, legislators are grappling with the reality that Arkansans overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to replace the Legislature's every-other-year approach to policy-making with annual legislative sessions. | ||
| 11/09/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| U.S. Buying More Loans to Students | ||
| The government announced plans to expand purchases of the student loans it backs in an effort to head off a potential shortfall next year. | ||
| 11/07/2008 | The New York Times | |
| GreatSchools Awarded $20 Million to Enable Kids to Get to College | ||
| A bold new media initiative, designed to help low- and middle-income families guide their children to graduate from high school ready for college, has rallied the support of the nation's leading education foundations. | ||
| 11/10/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| Gates Revamp Its Strategy for Giving to Education | ||
| The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation unveiled plans to revamp its high school grantmaking strategy to focus squarely on three pillars: identifying and promoting higher standards for college readiness, improving teacher quality, and fostering innovations to aid struggling students. | ||
| 11/11/2008 | Education Week | |
| Legislators Visit Springdale School Board | ||
| State funding for local schools is up in the air as the Arkansas General Assembly gets ready for its next session, starting in January. | ||
| 11/11/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Startup Date For Lotteries Uncertain | ||
| Arkansas voted to have lotteries in the state, but it's going to be a while before they get them. | ||
| 11/06/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Walton Family Puts Stamp in Education Landscape | ||
| A champion of greater choice in K-12 schooling, the foundation built on Wal-Mart money has risen to the top tier of private giving to precollegiate education. | ||
| 11/05/2008 | Education Week | |
| Education-Related Ballot Questions: 2008 | ||
| 2008 saw voters in 15 states weigh in on a variety of issues pertaining to state-level education policy. ECS gives a summary of the issue and status of the policies in each state. | ||
| 11/06/2008 | Education Commission of the States | |
| Assessing School Engagement | ||
| Students who are not engaged in school are at a higher risk of poor academic achievement, but leaders of after-school programs may not have a good understanding of how to captivate those they serve, according to Child Trends. | ||
| 10/31/2008 | Child Trends | |
| Arkansas Schools in School Improvement | ||
| The ADE released the number of AR schools categorized as being in school improvement under the federal NCLB legislation based on the 2007-2008 Benchmark Exams. | ||
| 10/31/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Districts See Rising Numbers of Homeless Students | ||
| School districts across the country are enrolling growing numbers of homeless children, as parents lose their jobs, leases, and mortgages in what many observers are calling the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. | ||
| 10/31/2008 | Education Week | |
| AT and T Grant to Provide Credit Recovery Software - Goal to Reduce High School Dropout Rate, Educators Say | ||
| Studens at risk of dropping out of high school can quickly recover needed credits with software provided by a $400,000 grant from AT and T. | ||
| 11/02/2008 | The Morning News | |
| National Survey Ranks States for Online Learning Policy | ||
| Republic's Center for Digital Education announced results from its survey of states across the nation regarding online learning policy and practice. Arkansas was ranked number four. | ||
| 11/04/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| Possible Education Plans for '09 Previewed by Beebe | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe raised the possibility of offering incentives to public high schools as a way to get greater numbers of students to take the rigorous Smar Core curriculum to graduate. | ||
| 11/04/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Fayetteville: Haas Hall to Relocate; 8th Grade Due in 2009 | ||
| Haas Hall Academy, a charter school in Farmington, will move next month to a new Fayetteville campus after receiving approval Monday from the Arkansas Board of Education. While the state board denied approval of a new LISA charter school in Fayetteville. | ||
| 11/04/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Lifting Lottery Ban a Winner, Voters Say Yearly Legislative Sessions Also OK | ||
| Arkansas voters opened their state to lotteries, banned by the state constitution since 1836. They also OK'd measures requiring annual legislation sessions. | ||
| 11/05/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Obama Elected 44th President | ||
| Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, whose campaign platform laid out an expansive agenda for pre-K-12 education, will have the chance to fulfill those promises when he takes office Jan. 20 as the 44th president of the United States. | ||
| 11/04/2008 | Education Week | |
| Final NCLB Rules Require Uniform Graduation Rates | ||
| The Bush administration put its final stamp on the No Child Left Behind Act today when it issued an extensive and wide-ranging set of final regulations adding new requirements on states, districts, and schools. | ||
| 10/28/2008 | Education Week | |
| Improving Outcomes for Traditionally Underserved Students Through Early College High Schools | ||
| A small but growing number of states have adopted policies specific to early college high schools, which allow students to earn a high school diploma and associate's degree in five years. | ||
| 10/29/2008 | Education Commission of the States | |
| Improving the Skills and Knowledge of the High School Teachers We Already Have | ||
| While numerous state efforts seek to recruit, train, and retain more teachers, fewer initiatives focus on developing teachers, particularly high school teachers, once they enter the classroom. This ECS policy brief also mentions efforts Arkansas has made regarding the use of technology to leverage adult learning. | ||
| 10/29/2008 | Education Commission of the States | |
| Three States to Pilot Education Overhaul Ideas | ||
| Three states have agreed to take part in a high-profile commission's effort to create pilot programs aimed at creating new approaches to public education that would help keep the U.S. internationally competitive. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Utah are the first states to form partnerships with the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. | ||
| 10/30/2008 | Education Week | |
| Lawmakers Question Use of Scholarship Funding | ||
| Legislators reviewing the state Department of Higher Education's proposed budget for the next two years questioned Thursday whether the state is making the best possible use of scholarship funding. | ||
| 10/31/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Hopes Riding on Leader for Troubled St. Louis District | ||
| Kelvin Adams will become the seventh superintendent since 2003 for the St. Louis school district. Enrollment has dropped from 44,000 in 2000, to 27,000 as of last fall. Parents are increasingly enrolling their children in the small number of charter and magnet schools. | ||
| 10/29/2008 | Education Week | |
| Why School Systems Cannot Lose Weight | ||
| U.S. public school systems are just like other public sector entities in that they are good at adding costs but bad at cutting costs. | ||
| 10/31/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| The Three R's (Recession, Reform, and Results) | ||
| Policy Priorities, nearly every state experienced flat or declining revenues in the first half of 2008 compared to last year, and 39 states have developed "budget shortfalls"--gaps between expected revenue and planned expenditures. So what should education reform do? | ||
| 10/30/2008 | The Education Gadfly | |
| More Than 1,650 CPS Students Paid for Good Grades | ||
| Every five weeks at Chicago Public Schools, students receive $50 for A's, $35 for B's, and $20 for C's. | ||
| 10/17/2008 | Chicago Tribune | |
| The High School Dropout's Economic Ripple Effect | ||
| As the financial meltdown and economic slump hold the national spotlight, another potential crisis is on the horizon: a persistently high dropout rate that educators and mayors across the country say increases the threat to the country's strength and prosperity. | ||
| 10/21/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| College Board Will Offer a New Test Next Fall | ||
| Amid growing challenges to its role as the pre-eiminent force in college admissions, the College Board on Wednesday unveiled a new test that it said would help prepare eighth graders for rigorous high school courses and college. | ||
| 10/22/2008 | The New York Times | |
| Report: Kids Less Likely to Graduate Than Parents | ||
| Your child is less likely to graduate from high school than you were, and most states are doing little to hold schools accountable, according to a study by a children's advocacy group. | ||
| 10/23/2008 | Associated Press | |
| After-School Sessions Expanding the Reach of Summer Program | ||
| The Freedom Schools, sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund, now offers after-school programs in schools, churches, and public facilities in disadvantaged communities in six states, and is poised to expand to other urban districts. | ||
| 10/14/2008 | Education Week | |
| States Press Ahead on '21st-Century Skills' | ||
| States are trying to revamp education to meet mounting demands that students possess not only academic skills, but also intellectual, social, and life skills needed to excel in college and the workplace. | ||
| 10/15/2008 | Education Week | |
| Dollars and Sense | ||
| With the economy in a tailspin and budgets getting strangled, ed-tech leaders are getting creative and saving thousands of dollars by employing tactics to cut IT costs and save programs. | ||
| 10/20/2008 | Education Week | |
| 'Sick' Days: It's Friday - Where's My Bio Teacher? | ||
| On any given day in the USA, about one in 20 teachers is absent from school, researchers say - between kindergarten and 12th grade, the typical kid spends the equivalent of two-thirds of a school year being taught by a substitute teacher. | ||
| 10/24/2008 | USA Today | |
| Charter Schools Offering a Controversial Path to Higher Education | ||
| Delta College Preparatory School demands a lot of its students. Students who attend the Helena, Ark. school - which is part of a nationwide network of charter schools called the Knowledge is Power Program - have one goal in mind: attending college. | ||
| 10/18/2008 | Delta Democrat Times | |
| Arkansas Education Matters, October 2008 | ||
| The October edition of the Education Matters newsletter begins with its message from the commissioner, followed by information addressing PE clarification, Chinese teachers, and the blue ribbon earned by Arkansas schools. | ||
| 10/17/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Governor's Summit Strikes Grave Tone in Preparing Work Force for Global Economy | ||
| Arkansas risks being relegated to the fringes of corporate desirability if an intelligent, highly-trained work force that can compete globally for knowledge-based jobs is not immediately cultivated, Gov. Mike Beebe said Thursday. "When we've lagged behind before it's always seemed that there was time and room for recovery. If we fall behind today, we risk falling behind forever," Beebe said at the first Governor's Summit on Education and Economic Development. | ||
| 10/17/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Growth Data for Teachers Under Review | ||
| As states' information-collection systems grow more sophisticated, officials are grappling with where to draw the line on how "value added" data on teachers can be used. Arkansas is one of the states listed as being able to link teachers to specific students' course assignments and assessment data. | ||
| 10/20/2008 | Education Week | |
| For First Time, Students in SREB States Pass AP Exams at the Same Rate as the Nation | ||
| The percentage of seniors who passed at least one Advanced Placement exam in the 16 Southern Regional Education Board states in 2007 matched the national rate for the first time, a new SREB report shows. | ||
| 10/15/2008 | Sothern Regional Education Board | |
| Charter Schools in SREB States: A Call for Accountability | ||
| By 2007, more than 950 charter schools, some of them nearly 15 years old, were operating in 13 SREB states, with enrollments approaching 350,000 students. This report explores how the achievement of charter school students in certain SREB states compares with the achievement of traditional public school students, and it examines roles of statewide data systems and state-level policies in establishing and maintaining effective charter schools. | ||
| 10/08/2008 | Sothern Regional Education Board | |
| High Court Clears Lottery Amendment for November Ballot | ||
| Voters will decide the fate of a proposal to create a state lottery for college scholarships after the state Supreme Court on Thursday turned back a legal challenge aimed at striking the measure for the Nov. 4 general election ballot. | ||
| 10/17/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Education Officials Back Down on Some Proposed ELL Mandates | ||
| Bowing to complaints from state officials and advocates for English-language learners, the federal government has published a final, and more flexible, "interpretation" of how states should carry out the section of the No Child Left Behind Act that applies to such students. | ||
| 10/17/2008 | Education Week | |
| 8th Grade Algebra Teachers in Arkansas to Need State Nod | ||
| Arkansas officials decided earlier this year to require all 8th grade teachers who want to teach Algebra 1, one of the most fundamental and challenging courses on the way to more advanced math, to obtain that state credential. | ||
| 10/21/2008 | Education Week | |
| Springdale: Program Gives Incentives to Excel in Hard Courses | ||
| A competitive grant program boosted participation in Advanced Placement classes in Springdale high schools, but it's up to students to apply that education in the marketplace, legislators and education leaders said Tuesday. | ||
| 10/22/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Wanted: Smart Feedback on Smart Regulation | ||
| For this work, we commissioned three intrepid young analysts at the University of Arkansas: Matthew Carr, Marc Holley, and Nathan Gray. From the get-go, we, they, and our sage advisors sweated over the types of regulations to be included and how they should be scored. | ||
| 10/03/2008 | Education Gadfly | |
| Arkansas Works to Pair Jobs, Students | ||
| Arkansas' 2008 high school graduates' career interests do not align with the jobs the state's economy will produce as they enter the work force, survey results show. | ||
| 10/05/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Education in Spotlight on Statewide Ballots | ||
| Education issues are poised to break through the din of presidential politics and economic anxiety in more than a dozen states next month, as voters confront ballot questions and constitutional amendments involving K-12 policy and school finance. | ||
| 10/08/2008 | Education Week | |
| Educators Urged to Support In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students | ||
| Some state university chancellors say they are supportive, though Gov. Mike Beebe maintains federal law prohibits what former state Rep. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock proposed in a failed 2005 bill that Elliott plans to resurrect when the 2009 legislative session begins in January. | ||
| 10/08/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| BMI Screenings in Schools Lead to No Rise in Taunts for Kids | ||
| Student teasing about weight has not increased since Arkansas law began requiring body mass index (BMI) screenings and other changes in schools to address the state's childhood obesity epidemic, according to new research published today. | ||
| 10/07/2008 | UAMS | |
| Panel Endorses Funding Boost For School Transportation, Teachers' Insurance | ||
| A legislative panel voted Tuesday to recommend the next General Assembly increase the state's contribution to teachers' health insurance premiums by $63 million and provide schools with $49 million in "enhanced transportation funding" over the next two years. | ||
| 10/15/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Beebe Says Additional Money Requests May Be Difficult | ||
| Finding $112 million to help school districts cope with higher fuel prices and teacher insurance costs may be difficult because of the uncertain economy, Gov. Mike Beebe said Wednesday. | ||
| 10/15/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Program Could Turn Arkansas' School Buses Into Classrooms | ||
| A pilot program that has transformed school buses into mobile virtual classrooms in one Arkansas school district is worth expanding across the state, coordinators say. | ||
| 09/27/2008 | The Morning News | |
| 18 State School Districts Get A's | ||
| Eighteen Arkansas school districts earned A's or A-minuses, and 14 other systems received failing marks in the latest in a series of Arkansas Policy Foundation studies. | ||
| 09/28/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Fayetteville, Springdale Principals Receive National Recognition | ||
| Two area elementary and middle school principals are being honored as National Distinguished Principals by the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the U.S. Department of Education. | ||
| 10/01/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Sales Tax Holiday For School Supplies Discussed By Panel | ||
| Retailers big and small want Arkansas to fall in line with most of its neighboring states in granting consumers an annual sales tax holiday for back-to-school shopping. | ||
| 09/18/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Department Awards $7.5 Million to Four States and Washington, D.C. to Study Improved Student Assessments Under No Child Left Behind | ||
| U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced $7.5 million in grants to four states and Washington, D.C. to study ways to enhance the assessment of student achievement, beyond what is required under No Child Left Behind. | ||
| 09/19/2008 | US Department of Education | |
| Survey Ranks Arkansas No. 1 in Amount of Teachers' Pay Going to Insurance | ||
| A recent survey of 36 states ranked Arkansas No. 1 in the percentage of teachers' pay taken up by out-of-pocket health insurance costs, the head of the state's largest teachers union told legislators Monday. | ||
| 09/22/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Educators Wish List Goes to Lawmakers, Insurance Funds, Internet on Buses Sought | ||
| The 2009 General Assembly should allocate more money for teacher health insurance and for more students to take Internet classes on school buses, advocates of those ideas told legislators Monday. | ||
| 09/23/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Interest in Expanding Hours for Students to Master Academic, Social, and Workplace Skills Is Mounting | ||
| Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future, and fearful that standard school hours don't offer enough time to do so, educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children's lives. | ||
| 09/24/2008 | Education Week | |
| Legislators back pension system contract | ||
| A legislative committee signed off Wednesday on the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System's proposed $725,000-a-year contract with a Chicago firm for general investment, real estate investment and alternative-investment consulting services. | ||
| 09/25/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Merit Scholars | ||
| A total of 143 Arkansas high school seniors are among nearly 16,000 students nationally to be named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. | ||
| 09/15/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Researchers Identify Best Strategies For Supporting New Science Teachers | ||
| With a nationwide shortage of science teachers and plummeting student test scores, many school districts are forced to hire teachers with science degrees but little training in education or experience teaching. Without proper support, research shows that 66 percent of new teachers will quit the profession within three years. | ||
| 09/09/2008 | Science Daily | |
| Indicators to Track Nation's Education Progress | ||
| Secretary Spellings announces that US education achievement should be measured by achievement in reading and math, achievement gaps, high school graduation rates, college readiness and college completion. | ||
| 09/16/2008 | US Department of Education | |
| New TEACH Grants May Come at a Price For Many Recipients | ||
| This fall, hundreds of eager teachers-to-be will undergo their training with the backing of federal dollars from a new scholarship program. A decade from now, that money will be a boon to some of those teachers, who will have subsidized up to $24,000 worth of coursework. But it will be burden to others, who will have to repay their entire subsidy, with interest. | ||
| 09/17/2008 | Education Week | |
| Millage Elections Results | ||
| Following are the unofficial results of 16 school districts' proposed changes in their millage rates in Tuesday's school elections across the state. | ||
| 09/17/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| State Seen Near Charter-School Cap Next Year | ||
| Six open-enrollment charter schools are on the drawing board for opening in 2009, including two in central Little Rock, two in Jacksonville, and one each in Fayetteville and Eudora. | ||
| 09/11/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Spellings Delivers Keynote Address at the Summit on Education Reform and Hispanic Education Attainment | ||
| The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, the U.S. Department of Education, and several of the nation's leading Hispanic organizations, corporate leaders and national private entities met for the summit to increase awareness and share information on the promising practices and the positive outcomes they are producing for Hispanic students. | ||
| 09/11/2008 | US Department of Education | |
| Parenting Matters In Achievement Of Boys, Girls | ||
| Parenting style impacts the achievement gap between boys and girls more than other factors, a family and development psychologist, said in Springdale on Thursday. | ||
| 09/11/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Career-Ready Policy Institute | ||
| Melinda Gates Foundation, is designed to help states put K-12 assessment and accountability systems in place that will ensure that all students graduate from high school college and career ready. | ||
| 09/10/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Spec. Ed. Is Funding Early Help | ||
| Bit by bit, the U.S. Department of Education is trying to pull down the walls that have traditionally separated general and special education. | ||
| 09/10/2008 | Education Week | |
| LEADING for LEARNING | ||
| Education Week explores the leadership challenges facing the nation's expanding charter school sector. | ||
| 09/10/2008 | Education Week | |
| 3 State Schools Get National Honor | ||
| Three Arkansas schools are among 320 schools named 2008 No Child Left Behind Schools-Blue Ribbon Schools by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings on Tuesday. | ||
| 09/10/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Arkansas Education Matters | ||
| ADE releases their September 2008 newsletter with a message from the commissioner . | ||
| 09/10/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Teachers Learn More About New Code Of Ethics | ||
| Standards in a state teachers' code of ethics are vague and won't be clarified until a licensing board holds hearings or lawsuits are filed in court. | ||
| 09/04/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Hussman, Walton Money Fuel e-Stem | ||
| It's taken nearly $8 million to open the doors to the three e-Stem charter schools, $1.495 million in outright grants and the rest in loans from the Walton Family Foundation and Walter Hussman. | ||
| 09/04/2008 | Arkansas Times | |
| Bus Stop, Route Consolidations Save Fuel | ||
| School districts cut and rearranged bus routes and bus stops to save money on fuel, but parents question whether some of the new stops pose safety hazards. | ||
| 09/06/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Why Holding Kids Back in School Is Bad | ||
| A study shows that any difference in scholastic achievement seen in "latecomers" to school fades quickly, and is gone by grade eight. More disturbing, older kids in a classroom are often a detriment to younger ones making it more likely they will be held back a grade. | ||
| 08/29/2008 | Live Science | |
| Department of Education Posts Arkansas Reading First Schools | ||
| The Department of Education posts Arkansas Reading First Schools. | ||
| 08/25/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Panels Formally Adopt Schools' Adequacy Study | ||
| The House and Senate Education committees formally adopted Thursday the "adequacy study" for funding an adequate education in Arkansas public schools the next few years, adding written comments justifying each recommendation. | ||
| 08/29/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Brother, Sister Earn Perfect ACT Scores | ||
| David Ye, a sophomore at Little Rock's Central High, scored a perfect 36 on the ACT college entrance exam that he took in June after his freshman year. | ||
| 08/31/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Studies of Popular Reading Texts Don't Meet Reviewers' Rigor Test | ||
| Reports on Open Court Reading and Reading Mastery, both highly structured texts failed to earn ratings from the What Works Clearinghouse because they do not have any studies that satisfy the agency's rigorous evidence standards. | ||
| 08/27/2008 | Education Week | |
| State to Charge Teachers for Licenses | ||
| As of September 1, educators obtaining, renewing or adding to an Arkansas teaching license will pay licensure fees ranging from $35 to $100 as part of the process. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Fees for Teaching Licenses Go Into Effect Monday | ||
| As of September 1, educators obtaining, renewing or adding to an Arkansas teaching license will pay licensure fees ranging from $35 to $100 as part of the process. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Task Force Forecasts Classroom Curriculum | ||
| Classrooms in the 21st century won't have lecterns or rows of desks, but instead students grouped together working with computers and other technology as teachers mill about, a task force told legislators Monday. | ||
| 08/25/2008 | The Morning News | |
| AP Results Show Arkansas Student Performance Improving | ||
| More public school students in Arkansas participated in Advanced Placement courses and scored well on Advanced Placement Exams in 2008 than in 2007, in a continued pattern of expanded access and improved performance, the College Board announced today. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Officials Report Mixed Results On Student Testing | ||
| More Arkansas public school students took and scored better on Advanced Placement exams this year than in 2007, while both participation in SAT exams and students' SAT scores showed slight decreases, education officials said Tuesday. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | The Morning News | |
| SAT Scores Flat as Test-Taking Edges Upward | ||
| Overall SAT scores remained flat this year amid continued but slowing growth in the number of high school seniors taking the widely used college-entrance exam. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | Education Week | |
| Hard Times Hit Schools | ||
| Just two months ago, states had already racked up $40 billion in budget shortfalls so far this fiscal year. | ||
| 08/27/2008 | Education Week | |
| 2008 Arkansas Highlights | ||
| ADE and College Board present highlights of Arkansas' public schools participation and performance regarding AP, PSAT/NMSQT, and SAT. | ||
| 08/26/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education and College Board | |
| D.C. Tries Cash as a Motivator In School | ||
| For years, school officials have used detention, remedial classes, summer school and suspensions to turn around poorly behaved, underachieving middle school students, with little results. Now they are introducing a program that will pay students up to $100 per month for displaying good behavior. | ||
| 08/22/2008 | Washington Post | |
| Applicants Highlight Dedication To Children | ||
| Both women who seek a vacant seat on the Rogers School Board said they have a dedication to children and can dedicate numerous hours each month at meetings and school functions. | ||
| 08/21/2008 | The Morning News | |
| University Withdraws High School Offer | ||
| If there is to be a new Fayetteville High School, it will probably be built on the current 40-acre site. | ||
| 08/21/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Workshop Helps Parents Help Their Kids Go to School | ||
| The Jones Center for Families in Springdale will host a three-part workshop for parents of students entitled "Going to School." | ||
| 08/19/2008 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Access to Success | ||
| Increasing college graduates in Arkansas promotes economic development. This is the final report of the Arkansas Task Force on Higher Education Remediation, Retention, and Graduation Rates: A Plan for Increasing the Number of Arkansans with Bachelor's Degrees. | ||
| 08/20/2008 | Arkansas Legislator | |
| Decatur Attendance Down By 66 Students | ||
| Decatur school officials are looking for about 66 students who could mean another $382,000 for the struggling district. | ||
| 08/20/2008 | The Morning News | |
| State High School Exit Exams: A Move Toward End-of-Course Exams | ||
| The Center on Education Policy releases its seventh annual report. | ||
| 08/20/2008 | Center on Education Policy | |
| When Schools Offer Money as a Motivator | ||
| More and more school districts are banking on improving student performance using cash incentives, a $1,000 payout for high test scores, for example. But whether they work is hard to say. In the latest study of student-incentive programs, researchers examining a 12-year-old program in Texas found that rewarding pupils for achieving high scores on tough tests can work. | ||
| 08/21/2008 | The Wall Street Journal | |
| U.S. Department of Education Awards Idaho $3.4 Million Grant to Help Create More Charter Schools | ||
| The U.S. Department of Education's Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Doug Mesecar visited the Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, Idaho, today to present a $3,386,402 Charter School Program grant award to the Idaho State Department of Education. | ||
| 08/20/2008 | US Department of Education | |
| Report Urges Improvements To After-School, Summer Programs | ||
| After-school and summer programs should be expanded, affordable and accessible to all students and uniform across the state, a task force recommended to the governor Tuesday. | ||
| 08/19/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Greenland Student Enrollment Dips | ||
| Financially strapped Greenland schools enjoyed a good first day, even though attendance was down significantly, painting a challenging picture for district attempts to turn itself around. | ||
| 08/19/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Report Urges Improvements To After-School, Summer Programs | ||
| After-school and summer programs should be expanded, affordable and accessible to all students and uniform across the state, a task force recommended to the governor Tuesday. | ||
| 08/19/2008 | The Morning News | |
| New U.S. Research Center to Study Education Technology | ||
| Congress has authorized a new federal research center that will be charged with helping to develop innovative ways to use digital technology at schools and in universities. | ||
| 08/19/2008 | Finding Dulcinea | |
| D.C. Debates Pay-for-Tenure Swap for Teachers | ||
| The District of Columbia's 4,000 teachers will be asked to vote next month on a tentative contract that would offer those willing to forgo tenure protections the opportunity to earn up to $131,000 by next school year if their students post significant learning gains. | ||
| 08/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Shaky Economy Expected to Follow Kids Back to School | ||
| Many children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks, even wear last year's clothes. Field trips? Forget about it. | ||
| 08/18/2008 | Teacher Magazine | |
| Schools Across the Country Combat the Obsetity Epidemic | ||
| As the childhood obesity epidemic continues to broaden across the world, health advocates and policy-makers are turning to schools in an effort to combat the problem. Arkansas is highlighted as making efforts to tackle the crisis. | ||
| 08/18/2008 | Finding Dulcinea | |
| Arkansas 50th in College Degrees | ||
| The state ranks 50th in the number of people with bachelor's degrees, according to a report by the Arkansas Task Force on Higher Education. | ||
| 08/18/2008 | Arkansas Matters | |
| Rogers School District Limits Budget Hike | ||
| The Rogers School District will pay for and staff a second high school with only a 5.6 percent increase in the 2008-09 operation budget. | ||
| 08/18/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Across State, School Walls Gleam New | ||
| Public school students and teachers in Arkansas are in the midst of a construction boom, one that is producing new campuses and additional buildings. | ||
| 08/17/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| 5 Schools on Probation Again | ||
| Five Arkansas schools are on probation for the second consecutive year for violating state school accreditation requirements in 2007-08. | ||
| 08/17/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Ortman Feels Up to the Challenge | ||
| Former Gravette School District superintendent Leroy Ortman has stepped into the challenge of leading the Decatur School District as it strives to get back on its feet. | ||
| 08/17/2008 | The Benton County Daily Record | |
| 12 Colleges Sitting Out High School Program | ||
| Twelve of 15 colleges that participated last year in the Arkansas Early College High School program have pulled out amid an investigation into grade-inflation allegations, but enrollment has still grown, education officials said this week. | ||
| 08/16/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| The 2008 Education Next-PEPG Survey of Public Opinion | ||
| The second annual survey of U.S. adults' opinions about education--conducted under the auspices of Education Next and Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG)--is now out, and it seems that the public's generally despondent mood has dripped like four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline into the realm of public schooling. | ||
| 08/16/2008 | Education Next | |
| Instant Messaging Found to Slow Students' Reading | ||
| Students who send and receive instant messages while completing a reading assignment take longer to get through their texts but apparently still manage to understand what they're reading, according to one of the first studies to explore how the practice affects academic learning. | ||
| 08/15/2008 | Education Week | |
| Schools Under Scrutiny | ||
| A prominent state legislator has a simple warning for schools across the state regarding athletic-related travel expenditures. | ||
| 08/14/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Vague School Funding Study OK'd | ||
| The state House and Senate Education Committees approved on Wednesday with little discussion and with only slight revision a study for funding an adequate education in Arkansas that contains no definitive amount. | ||
| 08/14/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| State High School Exit Exams: A Move Toward End-of-Course Exams | ||
| This report examines the new developments in the implementation of state high school exit exams in the 26 states that currently implement or plan to implement these tests. The report specifically focuses on the states' move away from minimum-competency and comprehensive exams toward end-of-course exams. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | Center on Education Policy | |
| Lawmakers Endorse School Funding Hike | ||
| Lawmakers on Wednesday endorsed increasing money to schools by as much as $58.8 million a year but left several questions unanswered on how much to pay for fuel costs, teacher salaries and health insurance. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | The Morning News | |
| UA Professors Nominated to Federal Boards | ||
| Robert Costrell was named Wednesday to a panel that will advise the U.S. Department of Education. Patrick Wolf was nominated Tuesday to the National Board for Education Sciences. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Studies of Popular Reading Texts Don't Make Grade | ||
| Two well-known commercial reading programs, which have been adopted by some of the nation's largest school districts and have met the strict requirements for research-based programs under the federal Reading First initiative, failed to earn ratings from the What Works Clearinghouse because they do not have any studies that satisfy the agency's rigorous evidence standards. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | Education Week | |
| Exit Scramble | ||
| States that rushed to tie high school graduation to passing a high-stakes test now face pressure to come up with alternatives, even as critics warn against a dilution of standards. | ||
| 08/14/2008 | Education Week | |
| ACT Scores Up in State But Rosy for a Mere 17% | ||
| While Arkansas high school graduates in 2008 saw a slight increase in ACT scores, many of those students who took the college-entrance exam failed to meet college-readiness standards set by the testing organization. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Teamwork Key for Pilot Plans on Teacher Pay | ||
| A variety of federally financed grants based on performance pay are providing insights into how districts and teachers can collaborate to implement sustainable programs designed to improve teaching and learning. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | Education Week | |
| Legislators Recommend Raising School Funding | ||
| Annual state and local school funding should be increased by at least $34 million but no more than $59 million, a legislative subcommittee recommended Tuesday. | ||
| 08/13/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Arkansas Students' ACT Scores Improve | ||
| Arkansas students' ACT scores for 2008 improved slightly over the previous year's scores, state Education Commissioner Ken James said Tuesday. | ||
| 08/12/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Lawmakers Say School Funding Report Too Vague | ||
| The state House and Senate education committees on Tuesday began reviewing a draft report on how much money will be needed in the next biennium to provide an adequate public school education - a report some lawmakers said was too vague to be of much help. | ||
| 08/12/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Charter School Gets a No on Move Plans | ||
| Haas Hall Academy, a Farmington-area charter school serving grades nine through 12 in Washington County, cannot move to a Fayetteville location, increase its enrollment cap or add a class of eighth-graders for the 2008-09 school year. | ||
| 08/12/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Charter School Gets a No on Move Plans | ||
| Haas Hall Academy, a Farmington-area charter school serving grades nine through 12 in Washington County, cannot move to a Fayetteville location, increase its enrollment cap or add a class of eighth-graders for the 2008-09 school year. | ||
| 08/12/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Attorney for State Takes Education Post | ||
| Jeremy C. Lasiter is moving from attorney general position to the general counsel's job at the Arkansas Department of Education, Education Commissioner Ken James anounced. | ||
| 08/10/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| 5 Chinese to Introduce Kids to Language, Culture | ||
| Students in a half-dozen Arkansas school districts are on track to receive Chinese language lessons from teachers from Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu. | ||
| 08/10/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Eaten Up: School Lunch Price Soars | ||
| Lunch prices are up by as much as 30 cents in many school cafeterias across Northwest Arkansas as districts prepare to open in eight days. | ||
| 08/09/2008 | The Morning News | |
| 11 More Charter Schools Proposed | ||
| Arkansas board of education can only approve seven of the 11 proposed open-enrollment charter schools because of state law. | ||
| 08/07/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Diesel Cash for Schools Now Backed | ||
| Legislative sub-committee changes position and decides to recommend an "enhanced" category of transportation funds from the state, despite concerns that districts will take advantage of the system. | ||
| 08/07/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Congress OKs Renewal of Higher Education Act | ||
| Congress approved a final Higher Education Act reauthorization bill that would bolster collaboration between school districts and teacher-preparation programs, encourage colleges to hold down tuition costs, and simplify the main federal student-aid application. | ||
| 08/01/2008 | Education Week | |
| Some States Said to Share 'Core' Standards | ||
| An analysis by Achieve has found that states that have worked individually to set rigorous academic standards for high school students have inadvertently subscribed to a "common core" of expectations in English/language arts and mathematics. Arkansas was among the states analyzed. | ||
| 07/31/2008 | Education Week | |
| Tutoring vs. Training | ||
| The Arkansas Democrat Gazette has republished a study from September 2000 highlighting the differences between teaching children academic skills and teaching them how to learn. | ||
| 08/06/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Tutoring-First Plan Approved for Arkansas | ||
| US Department of Education has approved Arkansas to participate in a program which gives struggling schools an alternative to paying for every student to transfer to another school. | ||
| 08/06/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Task Force Push for Defibrillators in All Arkansas Schools | ||
| Members of a legislative task force said Monday they will urge the Legislature to provide defibrillators to every public school in the state. | ||
| 08/05/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Pilot Program Allows Districts to Offer Free Tutoring Earlier to Help Students Improve Under No Child Left Behind | ||
| The department of education has a longer story on the decision to let Arkansas reverse the order in which public school choice and supplemental educational services (SES) are offered to eligible students in schools in the first year of improvement. | ||
| 08/04/2008 | U.S. Department of Education | |
| State takes over tiny Decatur district | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education voted to disband the Decatur School Board and replace its superintendent with a state appointee and plans to eliminate the district entirely. | ||
| 08/02/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Educator Resigns on Heels of Audit | ||
| The director of the Southeast Arkansas Education Service Cooperative resigned in the wake of a state investigation into allegations he and others pressured teachers to inflate grades for high school students taking college-level courses. | ||
| 07/29/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Asbell to Provide Starting School Supplies for Students | ||
| Asbell Elementary School students and their parents will receive a price break on school supplies when they show up for the first day of school Aug. 6. | ||
| 07/29/2008 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Bentonville Schools Eye Diversity | ||
| The Bentonville School District will aim to increase the percentage of ethnic-minority teachers and administrators until it at least equals that of the student population. | ||
| 07/28/2008 | The Mornings News | |
| School Millage Elections will have to Wait Until 2009 | ||
| Because of election timelines, Fayetteville school district officials will pass up their chance to hold a millage election for a new high school in September, and as result, no vote on the matter can be held until January 2009 at the earliest. | ||
| 07/28/2008 | Northwest Arkansas Times | |
| Beebe to Convene Education-Economic Development Summit | ||
| Gov. Mike Beebe's first summit on education and economic development will coincide with the 80th annual conference of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce - Associated Industries of Arkansas. | ||
| 07/26/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Colleges Hope to Jump-Start Economic Development with New Program | ||
| Select Arkansas community colleges plan to offer entrepreneurship curriculum beginning this fall with an eye toward fostering economic development, the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges announced. | ||
| 07/25/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| New Superintendent Announced for Greenland School District | ||
| Arkansas Commissioner of Education Dr. Ken James introduced Roland M. Smith of Rogers as the new superintendent of the Greenland School District, who will assume duties of the job effective immediately. | ||
| 07/24/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Girls are Equal to Boys on State Math Tests, Study Finds | ||
| In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in math in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released in the journal Science. | ||
| 07/24/2008 | Education Week | |
| ADHD Increasingly Common in Older Children, CDC Says | ||
| More older children are being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, while the rate is holding steady for children under 12, according to a government report. | ||
| 07/23/2008 | Education Week | |
| State OK's Takeover of Greenland District | ||
| The Arkansas Board of Education voted to take over the financially failing Greenland School District, dissolving the local School Board and ordering the appointment of a new superintendent reporting directly to the state's education commissioner. | ||
| 07/15/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Beebe Appoints Two to State Board of Education | ||
| A former state legislator who helped shape the public school funding formula and the co-founder of a South Arkansas education foundation were named Monday to the state Board of Education. | ||
| 07/15/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| LR's eStem Schools Near Readiness | ||
| Six and a half months and $6.4 million after receiving state approval to operate, the transformation of the 100-year-old Arkansas Gazette newspaper building into the eStem Elementary, Middle and High Public Charter schools is nearly complete. | ||
| 07/15/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Linking child support payments to licenses effective, officials say | ||
| When the state Education Department asked teachers and school administrators for comments last spring on a proposed code of ethics for educators, one part of the code was criticized as going too far, even though it has been a state law for over a decade. | ||
| 07/13/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| States Struggle to Meet Achievement Standards for ELLs | ||
| Nearly all states continue to struggle in meeting the No Child Left Behind Act's academic targets for English-language learners in mathematics and reading, according to the latest analysis released by the U.S. Department of Education. | ||
| 07/11/2008 | Education Week | |
| Gains Made on End-of-Course, Literacy Exams | ||
| Arkansas students improved performance in geometry and algebra in 2008 from the previous year, while performance remained constant in literacy, according to the latest round of Arkansas assessment scores. | ||
| 07/09/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education | |
| Children Alone Half the Time, Survey Reports | ||
| Students at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service completed a study concerning after-school programs in Arkansas public schools. Half of the students surveyed were unsupervised on a regular basis and a majority of them would consider attending an after-school program if their school offered one, especially Hispanic students. | ||
| 07/08/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Arkansas Progress Report 2008 | ||
| "Arkansas is on the move" according to SREB's report covering enrollment, NAEP test scores, postsecondary data, teacher qualifications and other key categories. | ||
| 07/01/2008 | Southern Regional Education Board | |
| Six States to Design Own Plans for Fixing Schools | ||
| Six states have been given permission under a pilot program of the No Child Left Behind Act to have more freedom in developing individual plans to help schools that do not meet adequate yearly progress. Up to 10 states will be allowed to participate; Arkansas applied but did not win approval. | ||
| 07/01/2008 | Education Week | |
| Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002? State Profiles | ||
| The Center for Education Policy released a report that highlights student growth on the National Assessment for Educational Progress. Overall, elementary, middle, and high school grade levels made moderate-to-large gains since 2002. | ||
| 06/25/2008 | Center on Education Policy | |
| Lansing mulls using merit pay for teachers | ||
| Marc Holley on merit pay. | ||
| 06/22/2008 | LSJ.com | |
| Benchmark Scores Continue Steady Climb | ||
| All grade levels saw an increase in the percent of students scoring proficient or advanced in each subject, with the exception of one that remained constant. | ||
| 06/20/2008 | Arkansas Department of Education News Release | |
| High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB | ||
| Lower-achieving students made dramatic gains, while the performance of top students was languid. Teachers say struggling students are more of a priority than their more advanced peers. | ||
| 06/18/2008 | Thomas B. Fordham Institute | |
| Author Discusses Teacher Quality Primer | ||
| Marc Holley on teacher quality. | ||
| 06/18/2008 | Mackinac Center | |
| Mackinac Center Swings at Teacher Pay | ||
| Marc Holley on teacher quality. | ||
| 06/18/2008 | MIRS Capitol Capsule | |
| Report Ranks Arkansas Near Bottom of States in Child Well-being | ||
| A recent report ranks Arkansas near the bottom of states in the well-being of its children... | ||
| 06/12/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| States Take Backloaded Approach to No Child Left Behind Goal of All Students Scoring Proficient | ||
| The Center on Education Policy issued a report that examines the interim objectives for student achievement... | ||
| 06/12/2008 | Center on Education Policy | |
| Fewer Arkansas Teachers Leaving After First Year, Panel Told | ||
| The number of public school teachers leaving the profession after their first year has dropped considerably... | ||
| 06/09/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Board of Education to vote on new code of ethics for educators | ||
| The state Board of Education recently passed a new code of ethics for Arkansas educators... | ||
| 06/09/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Arkansas High School Graduation Rates Exceeds National Average | ||
| The high school graduation rate in Arkansas is ranked 24th nationwide... | ||
| 06/05/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| States Take Backloaded Approach to No Child Left Behind Goal of All Students Scoring Proficient | ||
| Arkansas Student Performance | ||
| 06/01/2008 | Center on Education Policy | |
| Arkansas Finds Teacher Pay Hike Helped Retention | ||
| Arkansas Teacher Retention | ||
| 05/31/2008 | Education Week | |
| Fewer Teachers Leaving After First Year, Panel Told | ||
| Arkansas Teacher Retention | ||
| 05/23/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Lawmakers to devise plan to help schools cope with gas costs | ||
| School Transportation | ||
| 05/06/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Too many chefs | ||
| On Jim Argue and education policy. | ||
| 04/29/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, AR | |
| Mays wants closer eye on athletic costs | ||
| Joshua Barnett quoted on education finance | ||
| 04/28/2008 | TheCabin.net | |
| Argue: 245 districts is too many | ||
| Sen. Jim Argue and the 2008 OEP Conference | ||
| 04/23/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| State should have more control of local school funding, senator says | ||
| "The state should have more control in how local school districts spend money on education, Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, said during an education conference Tuesday..." | ||
| 04/23/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Argue: Ark. needs bigger say in local school spending | ||
| "State senator Jim Argue says Arkansas has made strides in improving schools with a series of court-mandated education reforms and funding hikes..." | ||
| 04/22/2008 | News Channel 3 | |
| Argue: Ark. needs bigger say in local school spending | ||
| Press coverage of 2008 OEP Conference | ||
| 04/22/2008 | Education Week | |
| Annual standardized testing season for public school students began in earnest Monday | ||
| ’s 245 school districts. | ||
| 04/08/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Sen. Argue to Assess State Educational System After Lake View Lawsuit | ||
| Gary W. Ritter on the 2008 Office for Education Policy Conference. | ||
| 04/08/2008 | University of Arkansas Daily Headlines, AR | |
| New study finds pluses, minuses in combining districts | ||
| Marc Holley on school consolidation. | ||
| 03/31/2008 | Education Week | |
| School-mergers study finds several positives | ||
| Marc Holley on school consolidation. | ||
| 03/31/2008 | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | |
| Study finds trends in consolidation | ||
| Marc Holley on school consolidation. | ||
| 03/30/2008 | The Morning News | |
| Effects of School Consolidation on Students, Educators | ||
| Arkansas School Consolidation. | ||
| 03/28/2008 | Office for Education Policy | |
| University of Arkansas Researchers Study Effects of School ... | ||
| Gary W. Ritter and Marc Holley on school consolidation. | ||
| 03/27/2008 | University of Arkansas Daily Headlines, AR | |
| Arkansas early education gets high marks | ||
| Arkansas' educational program for 3- and 4-year-olds ranked in the top tier in a nationwide comparison of preschools conducted by Rutgers University researchers. | ||
| 03/19/2008 | Education Week | |
| Time for testing | ||
| As students are beginning to exchange their winter coats for short-sleeve shirts, they are starting final preparations for the perennial statewide standardized testing regime...by Marc Holley and Gary Ritter | ||
| 03/17/2008 | Arkansas Democrat Gazette | |
| Arkansas example for other states in education reform, federal official says | ||
| Arkansas has become an example for other states to follow in reforming their public education systems, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon told the state Board of Education Monday. | ||
| 03/11/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Houston, Denver Move into Next Stage of Merit Pay Plans | ||
| Teacher performance bonus plans show signs that such programs may be sustained over the long-term. | ||
| 02/26/2008 | Education Week | |
| Little Rock Schools Receive Defibrillators | ||
| On February 25, two medical groups donated defibrillators to the Little Rock School District. | ||
| 02/26/2008 | Education Week | |
| Education Board Rejects Plan for Charter School in Northeast Arkansas | ||
| Arkansas education officials rejected a proposal by six northeast Arkansas school districts and a community college to operate a charter school in Blytheville. | ||
| 02/15/2008 | Education Week | |
| Study: Arkansas Schools Making Progress, More Work Needed | ||
| In February, researchers Keith Nitta of the Clinton School and Jay Barth of Hendrix College authored the report... | ||
| 02/22/2008 | Arkansas News Bureau | |
| Research Study Unveiled that Will Answer Key Questions About School Choice in Milwaukee | ||
| The first in a series of research findings on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program were released February 25, 2008. | ||
| 03/12/2008 | Department of Education Reform | |
office for education policy | 201 Graduate Education Building
College of Education and Health Professions | University of Arkansas
Fayetteville | AR | 72701 | Ph: 479/575-3773 | Fax: 479/575-3196
e-mail: oep@uark.edu