Research continues to confirm the importance of high-quality early childhood education as a strategy for improving the social, emotional, and intellectual development of children as well as increasing the likelihood of their future academic and economic success. A 2008 study by Jay Barth and Keith Nitta, for example, found that access to quality pre-k in […]

Executive Summary: Download the executive summary for a brief overview of the full report. Over the last two decades, standards-based education reform has led the march toward accountability, high-stakes testing, and rigorous performance standards for the United States’ education system. Beginning in 1990 with President George H. W. Bush’s America 2000 legislation, continuing with President […]

A quality K-12 education is critical to the future well-being of Arkansas’s children. The benefits of a high-quality education, or the negative impacts brought about by the opposite, will affect almost every aspect of a child’s life well into adulthood. A quality K-12 education makes it more likely that a student will graduate from high […]

A joint report by AACF, The Arkansas Public Policy Panel, and The Arkansas Education Association. An analysis of Arkansas benchmark test scores from the 2008‐09 academic year shows that open enrollment charter schools score better than their peer public schools on standardized tests, but that this success is driven by the distinct demographic characteristics of […]

Arkansas schools routinely fail to spend millions of dollars meant to help their poorest students catch up to their peers, according to an analysis of education spending data by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Many school districts are rolling over poverty funds from year to year instead of investing in proven programs that help […]

The 2006 report After School Programs in Arkansas: A Solution Whose Time has Come outlined the positive impacts that afterschool and summer programs have by keeping children safe, supporting working families and inspiring Arkansas children to learn. New research continues to validate these findings in both local communities in Arkansas and across the country. During […]

The Task Force recommends that Arkansas take the following actions to support expanded access to quality after-school and summer programs across the state. Promote quality by: Using the framework for quality standards and all of its elements in program expansion, evaluation, and training for after-school and summer programs. Expanding the capacity of state agencies to […]

Half of 3,700 Arkansas children recently surveyed said they were unsupervised after school on a regular basis, according to a new report by students from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. The report on the demand for after-school programs in Arkansas public schools also found that a majority of the children surveyed […]

Arkansas has dramatically increased education funding in recent years in order to meet the state Supreme Court’s mandate to provide adequate and equitable education for all students. However, overall academic achievement still lags behind that of other states and nations, and vast gaps in achievement among students of different income levels and races persist across […]

Arkansas has done a great deal to improve data collection and fiscal and academic accountability requirements for public schools in recent years. However, the system has been ineffective in broadly disseminating much of this information to parents, or to researchers and taxpayers. Effective communication between schools and parents is critical to ensuring children’s academic success. […]