Arkansas:
Short on Results

by David J. Hoff

Despite new standards and higher teacher salaries, Arkansas still trails most of the nation on many measures, chiefly student performance and adequate resources for schools.

In fact, the state spends less per student than the national average, even after adjusting for the lower cost of education in Arkansas.

Arkansas has very little to show for its nearly 20 years of education reform efforts.

The poor showings fly in the face of reform efforts in Arkansas dating to the early 1980s. Under then-Gov. Bill Clinton, the state poured new money into its schools by raising teachers' pay and, at the same time, requiring teachers to take competency tests.

In the 1990s, the state followed the national trend of setting academic standards--which it calls curriculum frameworks--and creating assessments to determine whether students are learning what's in them.

Now, Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, is emphasizing K-4 reading and math instruction, with the goal of increasing the number of students who meet or exceed grade-level expectations.

Arkansas' investment in new standards and assessments has so far returned data from only one exam--and it offers an even bleaker picture than NAEP. On the High School Proficiency Exam the state first administered in 1996, fewer than half the state's 11th and 12th graders met the literacy standard each of the first three times the test was given, and fewer than 20 percent of the students in each testing group displayed competency in math as measured against the state standards.

"We have a disconnect between what the teachers are teaching and the tests are testing. Most teachers teach what's in the textbooks, not what's in the standards," says Betty Pickett, the chairwoman of the state school board.

"Bringing [the standards] down to the classroom instructional level requires more effort than many schools have been able to give," adds Benny L. Gooden, the superintendent of the 12,500-student Fort Smith school district, near the state's western border. "We've had a minimum level of assistance from the state."

Another local administrator suggests that teachers will pay more attention to the curriculum frameworks now that the assessment system is established in high schools and is moving into the lower grades.

"So much time has been spent on creating the standards," says Marsha Jones, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the 11,000-student Springdale schools in the northwest corner of the state, "but until you do the assessments, you can't say you're working in a standards-driven environment."

Despite the early troubles, state leaders are determined to stay on course, but they have made some changes.

The High School Proficiency Exam, for example, was designed to be an exit test, but in 1997 the legislature removed it as a graduation requirement. Still, the test, which became an end-of-level exam, will be given to every senior starting with the Class of 2000. The math section will be administered when students complete algebra and geometry. Teachers may factor in the scores when they determine students' grades; in addition, assessment scores will be listed on students' transcripts. By the spring of 2001, tests will be ready in biology and civics.

The state also will continue developing tests for 4th graders and 8th graders. In February 1998, the 4th graders took the first version of a new state exam, and the 8th grade assessment is scheduled to be given for the first time in February of this year.

In the interim, the state continues to mandate that 5th, 7th, and 10th graders take the Stanford Achievement Test-9th Edition. While the state is crafting its own tests, it is using the results from the Stanford standardized tests as the basis for its accountability system.

Using Stanford-9 scores, the Arkansas Depart- ment of Education in 1996 declared 13 districts to be in "academic distress" under Act 915, a 1995 law that ordered the department to identify struggling districts. So far, six districts have been removed from the list and two have been added.

Districts are labeled in academic distress if more than half their students score below the 25th percentile on the Stanford-9. Districts in which 40 percent of the students fail to reach the 25th percentile are added to the list if they don't meet state averages on criteria such as dropout rate, attendance rate, and the percentage of teachers instructing outside their fields. Those on the list receive technical assistance from the state but no extra money.

Separately, state officials may push this year for the creation of a new pot of money to be distributed to schools based on a poverty measure.

Most academic-distress districts are small, rural, poor, and predominantly African-American in enrollment. For example, three of the four districts in Phillips County in the heart of the impoverished Mississippi Delta region landed on the list.

Since the initial designation, the Elaine district, one of those in Phillips County, has failed to improve its test scores. State officials have intervened by writing a plan for improvement.

Harold B. Duncan, the superintendent of the 580-student district, is satisfied with the process. Since 1996, the district has overhauled its curriculum to match the state's curriculum frameworks and invested in professional development to help teachers understand those changes.

"The improvements that have been made probably would not have been made as quickly or as intensely if we had not been put in academic distress," Duncan says. But if his district's scores don't improve, it may be taken over by the state or forced to merge with a neighboring district.

Meanwhile, the 144-student Carthage district and five others moved off the distress list. From fall 1995 through fall 1997, the Carthage district saw the percentage of its students scoring below the 25th percentile drop from 50 percent to 37 percent.

Carthage's improvement followed the hiring of a reading specialist to work individually with pupils in its elementary school and the district's increased emphasis on math instruction, according to Allen McDonald, the superintendent of the district in southern Arkansas.

Still, Pickett, the state school board's chairwoman, questions whether the accountability system is good enough. Because decisions currently are based on the Stanford-9 exam, they don't measure students' progress on the state standards, she argues.

And because the state doesn't identify specific schools within districts, some schools may be overlooked. "In larger districts, the low-performing schools get lost in the district average," Pickett says.

© 1999 Editorial Projects in Education

Vol. 18, number 17, page 129