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...
Annual pre-K report underlines need for more funding
According to the National Institute for Early Education Research’s annual report, total pre-K enrollment in Arkansas followed a national trend in 2013, declining slightly. The state ranks 14th for 4-year-old enrollment, reaching 33 percent of those eligible.* Last...
Broadband is an educational adequacy issue
The battle for broadband in our schools is on. Broadband is the fiber cabling that allows schools to connect to the internet, to the Arkansas Department of Education and to have enough bandwidth in their schools to run administrative...
Pre-K is OK in Oklahoma
As Arkansas begins to develop its state budget priorities for the 2015 legislative session, it would do well to take note of the major investments that some of our neighboring states have made in young children. Take the case...
Why quality teachers matter
The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education reports that students of color experience more suspensions, poorer quality teachers, and have access to fewer advanced math and science courses. The findings, released March 14, 2014...