ADE Briefs

ACT’s Activity magazine featured two Arkansas Department of Education staffers who have been using their spare time to run an after-school program to help minority students improve their academic achievement levels. “We knew from our research that with extra time and help, minority students could become college- and career-ready and academically competitive,” Dr. Charity Smith, [...]

Former President George W. Bush will deliver the keynote speech at El Dorado High School’s Academic Signing Day, which recognizes recipients of the El Dorado Promise scholarship program. The celebration will be April 22 in the El Dorado High School gym and will honor 250 graduating seniors who will be receiving El Dorado Promise scholarships. [...]

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that Tennessee and Delaware are the first two states Race to the Top to win grants. The press release is available on the USDOE Web site. UPDATE: Arkansas’s application received 394.4 points, placing it 17th. The top 16, all of which received scores of 400 or more, were [...]

In Dr. Kimbrell’s video address this week, he talks about the importance of Advanced Placement offerings and the addition of eight new schools to the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science as well as about two national happenings: the announcements of the Common Core learning standards and the U.S. Department of Education’s outline for [...]

Arkansas State Board of Education member Brenda Gullett joined the National Association of State Boards of Education’s press conference yesterday to endorse the announcement from Washington D.C. concerning improved school nutrition standards. Gullett is quoted as saying, “It has become clearer in recent years that healthy students are more likely to succeed in school and [...]

Smart Core is the college- and career-ready set of courses that is the default curriculum for all Arkansas public high school students. Completion of Smart Core with a 2.5 grade point average is also one of the qualifications listed for the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship. Because of this additional significance for completing Smart Core — [...]

Governor Mike Beebe announced today that Caroline Stokes and Erin Weatherford have been selected as two of the most promising young scientific leaders in Arkansas’s 2010 high school graduating class. At the invitation of Governor Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, they will participate as delegates in the 47th year of the National Youth Science [...]

Governor Mike Beebe announced today that eight more high schools have been selected to participate in the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Sciences (AAIMS): Jonesboro, West Memphis, Conway, Arkadelphia, Sheridan, Smackover, Rison and KIPP Delta Collegiate Preparatory High School in Helena-West Helena. The addition of these schools makes for a total of 31 schools [...]

Only 15 percent of Arkansas teachers — and 14 percent of teachers nationally –agree that students are entering their classrooms prepared for on-grade-level work, according to a report just released last week by Scholastic Inc. and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools” surveyed 40,000 teachers, 437 of whom [...]

The Arkansas Department of Career Education shares this exciting announcement….Martin Luther King III will be the keynote speaker at the Jobs for Arkansas’s Graduates (JAG) Student Leadership Conference on Wednesday, March 17, at McClellan High School in Little Rock. Governor Mike Beebe will also address the conference during the opening session. Gov, Beebe is currently [...]