WHAT IS ARKANSAS DOING TO CLOSE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP?

achievement gap in the future. Prodded by the state Supreme
Court, the state has committed to the achievement and
maintenance of adequate school facilities throughout the state.
However, while an important educational reform in Arkansas,
we cannot expect a major impact on the achievement gap
from the investment of state and local monies in infrastructure
enhancement. Because African American and Latino students
are more likely to attend classes in inadequate facilities, there
may be some reduction in the gap between white and minority
students through the indirect impact of school facilities
adequacy being achieved in the coming years. However, there is
no significant relationship between students being low-income
and attending schools with poor facilities. Thus, we cannot
expect the ongoing commitment to facilities quality to close
this achievement gap.
In addition, a significant number of Arkansas school
districts have made use of the federal Reading First program
to provide their students a new comprehensive curriculum,
centered mostly although not entirely on reading improvement.
Studies have shown that many of the curricula being used in
Arkansas have been effective in reducing the achievement gap.
The Arkansas Department of Education has shown strong
leadership in this area, and we find little additional opportunity
for improvement.
Existing Successful Interventions:
Opportunities for Enhancement
Three other areas represent halfway steps by educational
policymakers in Arkansas. All three are promising as techniques
for combating the achievement gap and, therefore, we
encourage the state’s work to fully embrace them. As noted,
more than any other intervention, early childhood education
has been proven to attack the achievement gap. Arkansas has
developed an excellent pre-kindergarten program. The crucial
next step is to universalize access to the programs for poor and
minority children. Thousands of three- and four-year-olds who
are eligible for free pre-kindergarten do not take advantage
of this opportunity. If their families did place them in quality
pre-K programs, this would be an even more effective strategy
for lessening the achievement gap. To achieve higher rates of
pre-K attendance, a major public communications effort is
necessary to alter many Arkansans’ inherent skepticism that
very young children should leave the home for an educational
experience.
Second, educational research has made it clear that teacher
quality is the key to student achievement and that low-income
and minority children tend to have less experienced, less wellqualified
teachers. State policymakers in Arkansas should be
applauded for the work they have done to improve teacher
quality: raising teacher salaries, raising credentialing standards,
and providing incentives for teachers to move to high-need
schools. Act 35 of the second special session of 2003 required
the development of a longitudinal tracking method focusing
on the value added to students’ learning by their educational
experiences during a given academic year. Such “value-added”
systems focus on comparing “previous and post student
achievement gains against a national cohort” (Act 35). The state
Department of Education determined that the longitudinal
tracking system should be implemented in the 2009-10
academic year. This system should be integrated with teachers’
professional development. More broadly, additional resources
put into the state’s education system need to be coordinated
to focus on proven strategies for improving teacher quality:
improving university credentialing programs, more rigorous
credentialing, and more rigorous evaluation.
Finally, it seems likely that pressure for additional school
choice options will continue to grow in the state. The only
element of school choice that has shown any convincing
evidence of success in closing the achievement gap is the
existence of certain charter schools with distinctive traits
(extended learning, rigorous professional development, etc.).
Such traits are found in the KIPP charter schools such as the
one now in operation in Helena-West Helena. We argue that
any expansion of charter schools in Arkansas be dedicated
to achievement-gap reduction and that the state board and
Department of Education encourage charter schools to make
use of learning techniques that have shown success in other
charters.
New Interventions: Signifi cant
Opportunities
There are four promising areas of reform into which
Arkansas has taken only the most token of steps: student-health
programming, extended-learning opportunities, parent and
community engagement, and class-size reduction. Because these
opportunities have not been exploited, we cite the need for
serious new investments in these areas
Students with health challenges spend less time in school,
resulting in lower levels of achievement, a greater likelihood
of grade retention, and lower graduation rates. Because of
low-income students’ greater likelihood of dealing with such
health problems, student health programming should be a
major component of a state achievement-gap reduction plan.
This would include programming targeted at alleviating certain
common health maladies (e.g., asthma and dental problems)
but also more comprehensive health programs such as the
creation of school-based clinics that would address the variety
of minor health challenges faced by individual students.
Similarly, Arkansas is nationally exceptional in its lack
of state-funded, comprehensive programming focused on
enhancing low-income students’ academic opportunities after
the school bell rings. After-school and summer programming
targeted at African American, Latino, and low-income students
have been shown to play an important role in attacking the
achievement gap. Aside from federally funded and ad hoc
local programs scattered across the state, Arkansas lacks such
programming. As a result, about one-fifth of Arkansas students
are latchkey children and a much larger number lack access to
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