Black students in Arkansas schools are more likely to be suspended and receive corporal punishment than their White counterparts, according to a new report from Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF), a member of the AR OTL Campaign.
Accountability should go both ways. Students and teachers shouldn't be held accountable to high-stakes test scores and grades unless they have the resources they need meet those standards. Which means that state governments should be held to account for providing high-quality resources and opportunities for all children, regardless of where they live.
In Lost Opportunity: A 50 State Report on the Opportunity to Learn in America, the Schott Foundation for Public Education establishes a metric for determining the opportunity to learn for students. Providing a state-by-state comparison of both academic proficiency (percentage of students scoring at or above proficient on the eighth grade NAEP reading exam) and equity (as measured by the Schott Foundation’s Opportunity to Learn Index, or OTLI), Lost Opportunity identifies the four baseline minimum resources that are necessary for a child – regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status – to have a fair and substantive Opportunity to Learn.
In the United States, every student should have the equal right to a high-quality education. But as our most recent data demonstrates, for far too many students, quality and equity are aspirations, not realities. Few states are providing public school educations that result in academic proficiency for students. And even fewer states are providing access to a high-quality education to all students, particularly those from historically disadvantaged groups.
Foundations have had an “on again, off again” love affair with the South. Funding there tends to be short-term and typically in response to a natural disaster, a national crisis or an election, but some significant infrastructure has been laid to coordinate and expand opportunities for sustained foundation giving.
Bill Kopsky, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, speaks to assembled participants.
Why Arkansas? Four years ago, in February 2012, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation (WRF) first posed that invitation as a question to fellow funders from across the country. In response, WRF hosted a statewide tour demonstrating to participants Arkansas’ readiness for education reform and investment.
In a powerful op-ed for the Arkansas Times Bill Kopsky, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, reflects on the shooting in Charleston, SC, the history of racism in his state, and the work yet to be done to end discrimination in communities across the nation.
A rally at the Arkansas capitol building turned into an impromptu victory party as organizers and supporters received word that the bill they were protesting, House Bill 1733 (HB1733) had been withdrawn from consideration in the legislative session. HB1733 would have transferred control of struggling districts to private organizations and left these districts and the communities they serve without a voice in school reform efforts. Yet while this win for public education is certainly cause for happiness, the bill's defeat does not mean th
