On June 29th, 2012, the US Department of Education announced that it had approved Arkansas’s ESEA waiver request. On July 4th, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) announced it had identified 48 Priority and 110 Focus schools. Priority and Focus schools are the new names for the two lowest-rated school performance categories; schools and districts in these categories are subject to ADE intervention. This policy brief explains the major differences between the accountability system under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the new revised system
