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Policy Briefs

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Articles 91 - 120 of 150

Full-Text Articles in Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Quality Counts 2010: Arkansas Holds Steady, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2010

Quality Counts 2010: Arkansas Holds Steady, Nathan C. Jensen, 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 14th annual report - Quality Counts 2010 - was released in January. Four of the six categories (Chance for Success, School Finance, The Teaching Profession, and Standards, Assessment and Accountability) were updated to reflect the most current (2010) data. Arkansas received the highest possible grade (A) in the Standards, Assessments & Accountability category, receiving perfect scores in the subcategories for Standards and School Accountability. Similarly, Arkansas' grade for Transitions and …

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Charter School Review In Arkansas And Across The Nation, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2010

Charter School Review In Arkansas And Across The Nation, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

At the most recent State Board of Education meeting, State Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell addressed the need for more monitoring of charter schools to ensure that these schools meet their stated goals, including the types of students they intend to serve and the scope of the schools’ curricula. Additionally, he noted that the current process for reviewing applications for charter schools is inadequate, and acknowledged the need for a more systematic review process. As a result, Dr. Kimbrell reported that the state is planning to create a charter review council that will serve two important functions: reviewing charter applications prior …

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Preschool Education In Australia, Andrew Dowling, Kate O’Malley Dec 2009

Preschool Education In Australia, Andrew Dowling, Kate O’Malley

Policy Briefs

Early childhood education (ECE) in Australia will soon experience a ‘radical makeover.’ In 2008, all Australian governments made a commitment through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) that by 2013, all children in the year before formal schooling will have access to high quality early childhood education programs delivered by degreequalified early childhood teachers, for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks of the year, in public, private and community-based preschools and child care. The purpose of this policy brief is to summarise the current structure of preschool in Australia in contemplation of this major policy shift. This paper describes the …

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Oep Welcomes New Commissioner: Tom Kimbrell, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Sep 2009

Oep Welcomes New Commissioner: Tom Kimbrell, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Office for Education Policy is excited to welcome the new Arkansas Education Commissioner – Dr. Tom Kimbrell.

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Recognizing The Accomplishments Of Ade Commissioner Ken James, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Sep 2009

Recognizing The Accomplishments Of Ade Commissioner Ken James, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

This summer, Dr. Ken James announced his resignation as Education Commissioner at the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). Dr. James’ last day was June 30, 2009 and Diana Julian stepped in as interim commissioner. Today, Governor Mike Beebe announced Tom Kimbrell as his choice for the next commissioner. As we await the official appointment of the new commissioner, the OEP felt it was appropriate to highlight Dr. James’ contributions to Arkansas education.

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Competing In The Federal Race To The Top, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Aug 2009

Competing In The Federal Race To The Top, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The federal Race to the Top is a national competition between states intended to support education reform and innovation in classrooms. States at the forefront of school reform are eligible to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top grants. Since this is a competitive grant, it is possible that some states will not receive awards, and President Obama assures that “politics won’t come into play.”

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What Is Highly Qualified For Arkansas Teachers?, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter Aug 2009

What Is Highly Qualified For Arkansas Teachers?, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In response to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, state departments of education, including the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE), established rules to define a “highly qualified” teacher (HQT). While the spirit of this provision is clear and reasonable, the devil is, of course, in the details. That is, what exactly does highly qualified mean? Observers had good reason to be suspicious early on when many states claimed to have 95% or more of teachers being highly qualified. (For instance, according to Education Commission of the States, 100% of North Dakota teachers are considered highly qualified and 14 …

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The New Arkansas School Performance Report, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Apr 2009

The New Arkansas School Performance Report, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Arkansas Department of Education has just released the Arkansas School Performance Report, a yearly report on academic achievement in all of Arkansas’ schools.1 One important addition to the Report this year is an academic improvement rating for all elementary and middle schools in the state. This rating should be of interest to all school observers who desire more nuanced information about school and student performance than is provided in commonly used school performance indices, such as the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) rating. We applaud the Arkansas Department of Education for collecting and releasing this invaluable information on student growth.

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Knowing What Works For Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Feb 2009

Knowing What Works For Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Office for Education Policy aims to serve as a resource to aid lawmakers and educators in education related decisions. The OEP recently became partners with the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), a research unit of the U.S. Department of Education, which reviews K-12 curricula and interventions. The goal of this article is to highlight the resources offered through the WWC, and draw attention to some of the WWC services and products that may be useful to educators in Arkansas.

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Quality Counts 2009, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2009

Quality Counts 2009, Sarah C. Mckenzie, 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 13th annual report — Quality Counts 2009 — was released in early 2009. As for the overall score, Arkansas was one of only ten states in the United States that received a B. Arkansas got the highest possible grade (A+) for financial equity among districts, and its grade for “Transitions and Alignment” — or how well a state’s educational system is coordinated from elementary school to college — was a …

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Stakes Increase For End Of Course Exams In 2009-10, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Dec 2008

Stakes Increase For End Of Course Exams In 2009-10, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

As of the 2009-10 academic year, high school students in Arkansas will be required to pass so called “End of Course” (or “EOC”) examinations in Algebra I, Biology, Geometry, and English. Students who fail to meet the requisite passing standard will be required to retake the class or to pass “an appropriate alternative exit course in order to receive credit for the course on his or her transcript and in order to graduate.” In other words, these four EOC tests will become high school exit exams. Thus, as of 2009-10, Arkansas will join some 23 other states that have high …

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Presidential Candidates On K-12 Education, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2008

Presidential Candidates On K-12 Education, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Every four years, our presidential candidates work hard to convince us that they have the best plan to keep us safe, prosperous, and well-educated. While economic challenges have recently taken center stage in the presidential election, education is still a critically important issue to OEP and its constituents. Here, we provide a summary of the views of each candidate on key issues and hope that this information is useful to our readers. In this brief, the OEP does not endorse one candidate over the other. Indeed, there is much to like in each candidate’s platform.

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2008 Test Scores Show General Improvement With Room To Grow, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Aug 2008

2008 Test Scores Show General Improvement With Room To Grow, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Results of the 2008 Arkansas student assessments were released earlier this summer and revealed that Arkansas students continue to improve with respect to the state standards. On nationally-normed exams, Arkansas students perform at roughly the average level.

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Are All State Exams Equal?, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Aug 2008

Are All State Exams Equal?, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Recently, policymakers at the Arkansas Department of Education were pleased to release the results of the 2008 Arkansas Benchmark exams, which indicate more Arkansas students are becoming proficient each year. This is also good news for proponents of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), federal legislation aimed at increasing student achievement through the encouragement of standards-based reform. However, Arkansas, like the other 49 states, sets its own standards for proficient performance. Thus, state by state comparisons of “proficiency” may not be meaningful. With 50 states administering 50 tests to determine whether students are meeting 50 sets of curricular standards, many worry …

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Time Spent On Testing, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Apr 2008

Time Spent On Testing, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In an era of standards-based school reform and the No Child Left Behind legislation, standardized testing has figured more prominently in discussions involving K-12 education. In Arkansas, one does not have to look far or listen too intently to hear concerns voiced about the amount of testing going on in public schools. Today's conventional wisdom holds that our students spend far too much time on these exams. However, since the conventional wisdom is not always true, we decided it was a good idea to ask the question: How much time are our students spending on standardized exams? In this brief, …

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Full Interview With Lawrence Picus, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Feb 2008

Full Interview With Lawrence Picus, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Lawrence O. Picus is a professor at the USC Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on adequacy and equity in school finance. He has published numerous books and articles, including School Finance: A Policy Perspective (with Allen R. Odden), and Where Does the Money Go?: Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools (with James L. Wattenbarger). His consulting firm, Picus and Associates has worked closely with the Arkansas General Assembly over the past few years, making several key recommendations that many state legislators believe have been critical in helping the state achieve educational …

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An Interview With Lawrence Picus, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Feb 2008

An Interview With Lawrence Picus, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Lawrence O. Picus is a professor at the USC Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on adequacy and equity in school finance. He has published numerous books and articles, including School Finance: A Policy Perspective (with Allen R. Odden), and Where Does the Money Go?: Resource Allocation in Elementary and Secondary Schools (with James L. Wattenbarger). His consulting firm, Picus and Associates has worked closely with the Arkansas General Assembly over the past few years, making several key recommendations that many state legislators believe have been critical in helping the state achieve educational …

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Comparing Arkansas Students To Their National Peers, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2008

Comparing Arkansas Students To Their National Peers, Sarah C. Mckenzie, 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 12th annual report, Tapping into Teaching: Unlocking the Key to Student Success, was released in early 2008 and merges the indicators from the shortened 2007 report, which focused on the “cradle-to-career” framework, with previous indicators such as efforts to improve teacher quality and school finance. To compare states across the nation, the Quality Counts series grades and ranks states based on six broad measures: efforts to improve the teacher quality; …

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Act 35 Report Card, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2006

Act 35 Report Card, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Office for Education Policy (OEP) has recently revisited Act 35 of the Arkansas General Assembly’s second extraordinary session of 2003 to highlight the Act’s provisions and assess the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) and the State Board of Education’s progress in addressing those accountability measures. This report is part of the OEP’s continuing effort to keep our constituents informed of the extent to which reforms are being implemented in Arkansas. What follows is a description of the Act and of the report card; for the itemized and detailed complete report card, please see the table below

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Alternative Learning Environments In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter May 2006

Alternative Learning Environments In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

One intervention that has been shown to be successful in helping students who have not done well in traditional school settings is alternative learning environments (ALE), or alternative schools (Lehr, Lanners, & Lange, 2003). The U.S. Department of Education (2002) defines an alternative school as “a public elementary/secondary school that addresses the needs of students that typically cannot be met in a regular school, provides nontraditional education, serves as an adjunct to a regular school, or falls outside the categories for regular, special education or vocational education.”

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Supplemental Education Services In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter May 2006

Supplemental Education Services In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 gives eligible students who attend Title I schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) for at least three consecutive years the right to receive free supplemental education services, such as after-school tutoring. Under NCLB, states must provide a list of approved supplemental services providers to districts, who then, theoretically, provide the list to parents of eligible students prior to the start of the school year, so that they can choose the best provider for their children (U. S. Department of Education, 2005).

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Salaries For Arkansas Teachers, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter May 2006

Salaries For Arkansas Teachers, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Over the last twenty years, teacher salaries have become a prominent topic in state and national education policy circles. Many contend that an earnings gap between teachers and other college graduates has become substantial and widened over the last few decades (American Council on Education Division of Government and Public Affairs, 1997; Henke, Chen, & Geis, 2000; Olson, 2000). The debate over whether teacher salaries are adequate is certainly open as more research appears from those arguing to increase salaries and those arguing that education money should be spent elsewhere (for a discussion of the adequacy and equity of teacher …

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Comprehensive School Reform: A Proven School Improvement Method For Troubled Schools, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Apr 2006

Comprehensive School Reform: A Proven School Improvement Method For Troubled Schools, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

As legislators in Arkansas begin to consider options for spending both Title I and categorical funds and as school leaders in Arkansas look for proven options that will increase student performance, especially for low performing schools that serve low income students, comprehensive school reform (CSR) is one researchsupported option to consider.

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Education Week’S 2006 Report On Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2006

Education Week’S 2006 Report On Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, 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. Released in early 2006, the 10th annual report, Quality Counts at 10: A Decade of Standards-Based Education, examines the progress that states have made on a core set of policy indicators related to standards-based education over the past decade: student achievement, standards and accountability, efforts to improve teacher quality, school climate, and resource equity. This policy brief summarizes Arkansas’ ratings on the 2006 report, compares Arkansas to its border states on …

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Lake View School Funding Update, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Dec 2005

Lake View School Funding Update, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In another landmark decision regarding school finance in Arkansas, the Arkansas Supreme Court has again declared that the state has retreated from its obligation to adequately fund public education, just as it decided in 2004 (Lake View School Dist. No. 25 v. Huckabee, 355 Ark. 617, 142 S.W.3d 643). Earlier this year, 49 school districts had requested the Court to recall its mandate and reappoint Special Masters to reopen the Lake View case and evaluate the state’s efforts to improve the adequacy of Arkansas’ school finance system (see Policy Brief 17). The court granted this request on June 9, 2005, …

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Rating The Special Masters, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2005

Rating The Special Masters, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

After the 85th General Assembly adjourned in April 2005, the Rogers School District, along with 48 other districts, filed a motion to the state Supreme Court to reopen the landmark Lake View school funding case, accusing the legislature of failing to increase school funding for the 2005-06 school year (see Policy Brief 17). The Supreme Court agreed and on June 9, 2005, reappointed former Justices Bradley D. Jesson and David Newbern as Special Masters to assess the plaintiffs’ claims. The Masters issued their report on October 3, 2005, concluding that “the state has not lived up to the promise made …

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Naep 2005 Results, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2005

Naep 2005 Results, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” is a national assessment of what students in each state know in various subjects. The Grade 4 and 8 mathematics and reading portions of the NAEP were administered in 2005 and the results were released in mid-October. This brief fact sheet highlights the recent NAEP results and demonstrates, simply put, that the state’s students are gaining ground on the nation according to the NAEP.

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A First Look At The Impacts Of District And School Consolidation, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2005

A First Look At The Impacts Of District And School Consolidation, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

For over two decades, the “fairness” of Arkansas’ educational system has been assessed by the courts. The 2002 Lake View ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court required the state to “adequately and equitably” fund the education system. Since the Supreme Court’s decision, state policymakers and education officials have worked to rectify problems highlighted in the Lake View case. Perhaps the most controversial plan was to consolidate several of Arkansas’ school districts.

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Superintendents Speak Out On Education Reforms, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Oct 2005

Superintendents Speak Out On Education Reforms, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In an effort to improve educational opportunities for all students, Arkansas has made education reforms in many areas over the past three years. The Office for Education Policy (OEP) recently distributed a confidential survey to superintendents across the state to see what kinds of successes districts are having as a result of these reforms and what challenges they still face. OEP also asked superintendents about teacher quality and supply issues in their districts, particularly in light of No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) requirement that all schools be staffed with “highly-qualified teachers.”

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Lake View Reopened, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Jun 2005

Lake View Reopened, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Arkansans may have thought that the decades-long fight over school funding was settled in 2002, when the state Supreme Court handed down the Lake View ruling which directed the state to “adequately and equitably” fund the education system. Since the Supreme Court’s decision, state legislators have made some strides in addressing the mandates outlined by the Court, such as increasing the state funding levels for districts and approving a plan to fund improvements to school facilities across the state.

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