ADE Briefs

Student families will begin receiving their copies of the 2008 Arkansas School Performance Report in the mail this week. For the eighth year, the Arkansas Department of Education, working with Gov. Mike Beebe, is sending the report that is chockful of information from Arkansas Benchmark Exam score averages to average teacher salary

“Parents of children in our public schools deserve to know how their schools are measuring up,” said Dr. Ken James, Commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education. “This report provides a way for parents to compare their individual school to other schools in their district and their district to other districts in the state.”

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. Act 35, the legislation calling for the Gains Model, specifies that these scores will be divided into 5 ratings for a school:
Level 1: Schools in need of immediate improvement
Level 2: Schools on alert
Level 3: Schools meeting improvement standards
Level 4: Schools exceeding improvement standards
Level 5: Schools of excellence for improvement

Because the Gains Index relies on the comparison of benchmark scores, which are administered in grades 3-8, few high schools receive a Gains rating.

A PowerPoint with a full explanation of the Gains Model may be found at ArkansasEd.org. Also available is a complete list of Arkansas schools with their Gains Ratings and the 2008 School Performance Reports.
Posted by JJT.

Smart Core will be the required high school curriculum for Garland County’s Lakeside School District students beginning with ninth-graders in the 2009-2010 school year. The district’s school board voted on the matter at its March meeting, with the only exception being made for those students whose course requirements are dictated by individual education plans.

Dr. Ken James, Arkansas Commissioner of Education, said Lakeside is the first district the Arkansas Department of Education is aware of that has officially adopted Smart Core as not only the default but as ‘the’ curriculum for all students.

Smart Core,the state’s default curriculum beginning with the graduating class of 2010 that provides the foundation for both college- and career readiness, includes a fourth-year of higher mathematics after Algebra II and three years of laboratory-based science. Research by ACT and other groups has shown that students achieve higher scores on college-placement tests and are more likely to succeed in their first year of college or in a career if they have taken the courses required in Smart Core.

“The only real change in course requirements we will have to make for our students is to enroll them in physics or chemistry,” said Lakeside Superintendent Shawn Cook. Previously, students could take an environmental science course as their third science requirement in lieu of chemistry or physics, he said. Lakeside students already complete the four years of math courses required in Smart Core.

Dr. James said he hopes that Arkansas eventually mandates the Smart Core curriculum for all students and that, in the meantime, other school districts in the state will follow Lakeside’s lead.
Posted by JJT.

The Arkansas State Board of Education today removed the Bald Knob School District from fiscal distress designation effective July 1, 2009. The school district was first placed in fiscal distress in April 2007, and the state took over the district by removing both the superintendent and the school board early that fall when it became clear that the district was days away from having a negative balance in its bank account. Since that time the community has worked to raise money and state-appointed superintendent James Staggs has worked with ADE and his staff to streamline the school district’s budget. The school district will be allowed to vote in a new school board during the regular September school board elections.

The first set of recommendations from the Professional Licensure Standards Board, created by Act 846 of 2007, concerning action on the licenses of six Arkansas educators were approved by the Arkansas State Board of Education today. The state’s first Standards of Conduct for Educators became effective September 1, 2009. Four individuals had their licenses revoked by the State Board today: Nathan Hill for violation of Standard 1, Brock M. Felton for violation of Standard 1, Daniel Clint Bousher for violation of Standard 1, and Matthew J. Rabjohn for violation of Standard 1. Letters of warning regarding licensure were approved for Linda Byrd for violation of Standard 1 and Julie Suzanne Woods for violations of Standards 1 and 4.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan met with state school chiefs in Washington, D.C., last week to emphasize the importance of wisely and effectively spending the $44 billion of stimulus money targeted toward education. To emphasize the importance his message, Duncan was accompanied by a special guest: President Barack Obama.
“It was an enormous surprise to have President Obama attend our meeting,” Dr. James, Arkansas Commissioner of Education, said. “His appearance — and his words — highlight the commitment to improving education that this administration has.”
In the coming month, the Arkansas Department of Education will issue guidance to local school districts regarding the stimulus money to be distributed through the Americal Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Please look for a Commissioner’s Memo outlining the process to inform LEAs of the manner of distribution later this week. In the meantime, please visit the state of Arkansas’s Web site dedicated to the ARRA for more information.
Posted by JJT.