Education Commons^™

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2013, Vera R. Deberg, Sarah M. Burks, Prairey Walkling, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

The GPA measure, we believe, is a better representation of student achievement on statewide standardized exams. In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these "top 25 lists" will contain more than 25 schools as some schools' GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

After we present our overall snapshot of …

Risky Business? An Analysis Of Teacher Characteristics And Compensation Preferences, Daniel Henry Bowen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teacher quality has a significant impact on both student learning gains and later life outcomes. With this is mind, policymakers implement reforms to attract and retain more effective educators. A major obstacle for designing these policies is that the ingredients for training, as well as initially identifying, effective teachers remain largely a mystery. However, there are strong theoretical arguments for certain education policy reforms producing improvements in the quality of the teacher workforce. One increasingly popular example is performance-based pay. Performance pay has the potential to better align teachers' incentives to produce increases in student achievement. Paying teachers based on …

Demographic Changes In The Arkansas Public Schools: A Five Year Comparison, Reed Greenwood, Vera Deberg

Arkansas Education Reports

This report provides a glimpse into the changes in public school demographics in Arkansas at the state, county and district level over a five-year period. This report compares enrollment information from the fall of 2007 to the fall of 2012 based on data obtained from the Arkansas Department of Education website during the summer of 2013 (Arkansas Department of Education, Data Center).

Charter School Authorizers, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Two types of charter schools exist in Arkansas: open-enrollment charter schools, which operate independently of any district, and district conversion charter schools, which operate within an existing school district. Charter schools have more autonomy on certain rules and regulations than traditional public schools; however, charter schools are held accountable for academic results and fiscal matters, as defined by the charters contract. Charter schools are approved and held accountable by a charter authorizer. In the 2013 General Assembly, a law passed to change Arkansas’ charter authorizer from the State Board of Education to a newly created panel within the Department of …

Public School Choice And Desegregation In Arkansas, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Jennifer W. Ash, Sarah M. Burks, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

Public school choice is an umbrella term for policies that allow students to enroll in a public school other than their residentially-assigned school. Public school choice, also called openenrollment, is typically divided into two categories: intra-district choice, transfers to schools in the same district, and inter-district choice, transfers to schools in other districts.

2012-13 Arkansas Test Results, Michael L. Crouch, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In early August, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) released the 2012-2013 test score results. The following brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of regional achievement results for the following exams:  Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)  End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11 Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Grades 1-9)

The Academic Impacts Of Attending A Kipp Charter School In Arkansas, Caleb P. Rose

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

KIPP Delta College Preparatory School (KIPP: DCPS), an open-enrollment charter school, opened in 2002 in Helena, Arkansas. Since its opening, KIPP: DCPS students have consistently outperformed their peers in the Helena/West Helena School district, and moreover, recent test scores suggest that white students and minority students are achieving at the same rate, essentially eliminating the achievement gap that persists between whites and minorities elsewhere in the state. In fact, KIPP's achievement record was so influential that when Arkansas lawmakers instituted a cap on the number of open-enrollment charter schools in the state, they made an exception for KIPP, essentially allowing …

2013 Legislative Review, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The 89th General Assembly in Arkansas convened on Monday January 14th and would file 2,640 pieces of legislation over the next 100 days. Of this legislation, there were 145 House Bills, 4 House Resolutions, and 97 Senate Bills referred to either the House or Senate Education Committees. That is a grand total of 246 pieces of “education” legislation representing roughly 9 percent of legislation filed in the session. The purpose of this policy brief is to review some of the “high -profile” education bills during the session. The highlighted bills here are split into three categories: 1) school choice, 2) …

An Analysis Of Intradistrict Funding Equity In Rural And Urban School Districts, James Lynn Woodworth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After a long process of judicial action, states have revised the education funding distribution systems to meet the legal requirement of providing both horizontal and vertical funding equity between districts (interdistrict) in the state. A major part of the judicially required reforms was a shift to weighted student funding or funding which provides differential amounts of education funding dependent on the estimated needs of students based on their individual characteristics. However, little research has been done to examine the equity of the funding distribution systems between schools within districts (intradistrict).

Intradistrict funding inequities are likely to persist in districts today …

Alternative Education Completers: A Phenomenological Study, Becky Lynne Murray

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Billy is a bright, wide-eyed, little boy with bounding enthusiasm and wonder as he enters the doors of school on his first day of kindergarten. When the school doors open in Billy's sixth grade year the wide eyes and bounding enthusiasm have diminished only to leave behind dread and dismay at the thought of confronting yet another abysmal nine months of failure. How can we, as educators, better serve the needs of at-risk students like Billy? Shouldn't we ask them? What elements of the alternative education experience were significant to successful completion of the alternative education program? The phenomenological paradigm …

The Impact Of State Characteristics On College Graduation Rates At Land-Grant Institutions, Melissa Bridges

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As our nation's economy has become increasingly knowledge-based, an educated citizenry is paramount to maintaining a competitive edge in a global marketplace. Thus, college participation and completion have emerged as the gateway to survival and growth for individuals, states, and the nation, making college completion rates a top priority. Stakeholders have begun to equate graduation rates with institutional quality and performance and often use such data to make judgments, create policies, and allocate funding. However, graduation rates are not fully understood and numerous scholars urge caution when interpreting and utilizing single outcome measures. The purpose of this cross-sectional ecological study …

Does Mission Matter? Examining The Role Of Organizational Mission And Religious Identity In Schools Participating In The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Michael Mcshane

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For decades, theories of bureaucracy have emphasized the importance of organizational mission in thriving organizations. This dissertation will examine the role of organizational mission in schools, particularly, a sample of schools that participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the nation's oldest and largest school voucher program. Using teacher and school leader survey data, coupled with measures of student achievement, it will measure mission coherence and correlate it with a variety of outcome variables of interest. It will also take a particularly close look at the role of mission in religious schools.

Perceptions Of High School Students Of The Impact Of A School Uniform Policy, Stacy L. Gregory

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High schools are tirelessly pondering ideas of enhancing the learning environment by increasing academic engagement and safety. This phenomenology study was designed to report and analyze the perceptions of selected students about their academic engagement and safety while attending one high school. Data for this study were obtained through interviews that were conducted on two levels: focus group and individual interviews. The results indicate that uniforms by themselves have little to do with a student's academic engagement. Students believe that their teachers play a big part in the way that they participate in educational tasks. They also believe that engaging …

The Effects Of Summer Reading Programs On The Academic Achievement Of Elementary Students, Renee Deshommes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with weakened academic skills face the possibility of having less access to higher education, or advanced career opportunities later in life. Such disadvantages, if not addressed, may result in a series of diminished opportunities that may affect a child's overall quality of life. Several educational experts suggest that the negative effects of the academic achievement gap are cumulative, and many educational experts also believe that the achievement gap between high and low socioeconomic students continues to be a persistent problem for which few solutions have materialized. The potential for summer reading programs to be implemented as a mechanism to …

Categorical Funding In Arkansas, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

As a result of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Lake View v. Huckabee Decision, the Public School Funding Act of 2003 established Arkansas’ current funding system. A part of the current system allocates additional funding for districts based on need (categorical funding). In doing so, the state recognizes that it is necessary to distribute additional funding based on educational need to meet adequacy and equity standards. The system allocates funding for groups of students who face particular challenges: Alternative Learning Environment students (ALE), English-language Learners (ELL), and students in poverty (National School Lunch Act). In the current legislative session, lawmakers are …

2012 Arkansas Report Card, Gary Ritter

Education Report Card

No abstract provided.

Fifth…Or Forty-Ninth? Examining Educational Rankings In Arkansas, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Media outlets, as well as many leaders across the state, have recently been trumpeting the Natural State’s fifth-place ranking in the latest release of Education Week’s Quality Counts, which assigns letter grades to every state on a menu of education measures, to suggest that Arkansas schools “rank fifth in the country.” On the other hand, the state received a D on the Student Achievement category of Quality Counts and many Arkansans are accustomed to seeing Arkansas ranked at or near the bottom among all states on measures related to education and economic well-being. For example, on measures of college degree …

Quality Counts 2013, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In an attempt to gauge the educational progress of the nation and each state, Education Week has published state report cards since 1997 in its annual Quality Counts series. The 17 h annual report - Quality Counts 2013 - was released in January. Overall, Arkansas maintained last year’s ranking of 5 th among the 50 states and earned the highest score of the eight states in the U.S. that received a B- (dropping from a grade of ‘B’ last year). This policy brief examines Arkansas’ rank in each category of the report as well as the quality of the report …

Academic Performance Of Charter Schools In Arkansas: 2011-2012, Reed Greenwood, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The 2013 legislative session is underway, and there are a number of policy changes under consideration. One hotly-debated issue involves whether the state should allow for multiple authorizers for charter schools (currently, only the State Board of Education may authorize charter schools). Moreover, several charter schools will testify before the State Board of Education in spring 2013 seeking charter reauthorization. As the issue of charter schools again takes center stage, we present an extension of our 2012 policy brief focused on charter schools. While our previous brief presented descriptive data on state’s open enrollment charter schools, this policy brief takes …