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. But it’s hard for parents to get involved if they have difficulty gaining access to basic information about their children’s schools. We need to make it easier for parents to obtain information about their children’s schools and to get involved. We also need to make it easier for researchers and taxpayers to hold our public schools accountable and help them improve. Transparency will lead to improved accountability, and greater accountability will lead to overall improvement in our public schools.