2016 Northwest Arkansas Education Report Card

This report card presents a regional overview of districts in Benton and Washington counties as well as key performance indicators for each of the 15 traditional public school districts and 5 public charter schools

Analyzing the 2011 NAEP Results: Where Does Arkansas Stand Now?

State education policymakers in Arkansas, and in all states around the country, take great interest in the state assessment scores published each year and are pleased when they are able to present positive results. This has certainly been the case in Arkansas with the annual publication of the results of student performance on the state Benchmark exams. While the state exams provide useful information that allow policymakers to compare schools and districts within Arkansas, they do not allow policymakers to assess the performance of Arkansas students relative to other students in the nation

2015 Northwest Arkansas Report Card

This report card presents a regional overview of districts in Benton and Washington counties as well as key performance indicators for each district

Quality Counts 2012

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 16th annual report - Quality Counts 2012 - was released in January. Overall, Arkansas ranked 5th among the 50 states and was one of only nine states in the U.S. that received a B. This policy brief examines Arkansas’ rank in each category of the report as well as the quality of the report itself

2011-2012 Arkansas Test Results

On Monday, July 30, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) released the 2011-2012 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

Fifth…or Forty-Ninth? Examining Educational Rankings in Arkansas

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 attainment, Arkansas regularly ranks 49th among the 50 states. So, which is it? Does the Natural State rank 5th or 49th? We believe that, while Arkansas performs admirably given the state’s level of poverty and adult education levels, the quality of our public K-12 schools falls somewhere between these two extremes