(Editor’s Note: Richard Page, Superintendent of Gravette School System, provided the following information concerning Arkansas’ School Accountability Standards.)
GRAVETTE - On June 29, 2012, Arkansas received a waiver on specific No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. No Child Left Behind was passed in 2002 and provided families with useful information about the performance of their children’s schools. However, NCLB’s rising targets led to an increasing number of schools deemed failing under the law. Arkansas’ approved accountability standards corrected many of the problems under NCLB. Instead of expecting all schools to reach 100 percent proficiency by the year 2014, the state’s accountability system measures progress by determining specific growth targets over time, a goal that is ambitious but more achievable than the NCLB goal.
Under the new Arkansas accountability standards, districts and schools are placed in one of five accountability levels that are designed to support schools where students are struggling the most. These accountability levels are: 1) Exemplary, 2) Achieved,3) Needs Improvement, 4) Needs Improvement - Focus and 5) Needs Improvement - Priority.
Recently, the state released results of the school performance levels as set by the new state standards. The results indicated that 19 schools were considered “Exemplary,” 342 schools were considered “Achieving,” 558 schools were listed as “Needs Improvement,” 109 schools were in “Needs Improvement - Focus” and 46 schools were in “Needs Improvement - Priority.”
Most districts in northwest Arkansas, and the state overall, were placed in the middle two classifications. Furthermore, schools listed as “Exemplary” were ones that showed the greatest gains from last year to this year but may not be schools that have a high population of students scoring proficient or advanced.
The Gravette School District has two schools listed as “Achieving” (Glenn Duffy Elementary and Upper Elementary) and two schools listed as “Needs Improvement” (Gravette Middle School and Gravette High School).
Over the last 10 years, the state accountability standards were set by Federal government. Today the new standards, set by the State of Arkansas, are more reasonable in their expectations and definitely appreciated by all of the schools.
Sports, Pages 9 on 12/05/2012