Support free meals for Arkansas students

This is a special post from Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance The federal government is offering to pay for breakfast and lunch for all students in qualifying school districts starting this fall. All...

What would it take to be number one?

Every year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation releases the Kids Count Data Book, a comprehensive, 50-state look at child welfare. Arkansas made gains in health coverage and education over the last year, but the child poverty rate went up...

Pre-K, not prisons

They’ve done it again. The legislature provided funding for prisons in this special session. About $6.3 million was funded this time to open 600 prison beds. That’s about $10,500 a bed-far more than we pay per student for K-12...

Juneteenth – Freedom through education

Today is Juneteenth, a day to celebrate the promise of freedom to black children and families throughout the United States. Though the freedom we celebrate today was provided by the Emancipation Proclamation more than 150 years ago, we still...

AACF statement on Common Core State Standards

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) supports the adoption of Common Core State Standards.  Setting high, clear, and consistent expectations for student learning is essential to improving educational outcomes for all Arkansas students and closing racial and socio-economic...

Covering the bases on Common Core

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) is releasing three documents aimed at helping low-income parents understand Common Core State Standards (Common Core). The documents are written in family-friendly language that is more easily understood by non-education professionals. One...

How to “fix” schools in academic distress

In a challenging editorial this morning, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called on our state to begin widely publishing the results of academic success, or lack thereof, classroom-by-classroom. The suggestion would be to make this the next step in academic accountability,...

Speaking up for adequate education

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) was one of eight groups invited to testify before the House and Senate Education Committees Monday to share its strategy for providing an adequate education for all Arkansas children. The need for...