Education Committee - Senate and House
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emb ers why don't we recess four or five minutes while we get the technology side of things working better we'll stay in a recess.
join education will come back into order ladies if you would please go ahead and just introduce
yourself and then you can begin Elizabethynum with
Speaker 20
9:15
the Bureau of Legislative Research Adrian beck also with the
Speaker 22
9:20
bureau Leh Hedley Bureau of Legislative Research. you recognized good morning thank you
Speaker 26
9:31
for your patience. so today we'll be presenting some information related to accountability and
achievement in past years and past adequacy studies this information has been provided across multiple purports and different presentations. This year we've combined the state and federal accountability systems your mic a little bit closer to you please thank you is that better this cycle we've combined the state and federal accountability systems as well as student achievement reports with academic standards which includes career and technical education orcTE. and this report today will meet the following requirements as ident oops
sorry has identified in the adequacy statute which you heard about in length yesterday. So those separate reports were our attempts to fulfill these specific items as they've been amended to reflect the current accountability systems in place. So for around 10 years or so this since the passage of the Arkansas Educational Support and Accountability Act in 2017. this adequacy study process has included a review of these systems as you can see in your tracking sheet which is tab 1a in your binders. This is an excerpt of what's required to accom pl ish some of the broader
duties which for these items include the meetings of the education committees to review what constitutes an adequate education as well as the method of providing equal of educational opportunity. Today this information will assist in this review as far as what constitutes an adequate education. we do have the working definition of educational adequacy which you also heard about yesterday our resource allocation presentations next month we'll go over part three but parts one and two of this definition will be related to the information provided
today is an overview and our roadmap for this presentation asjasmine noted yesterday we'll be going over the statutorily required topics but rather than follow the order in statute we'll be discussing them by topic and in sections and discussing throughout the areas that connect and identify and align with parts of the definition of adequacy beginning with the academic standards, thec accountability system structured around those standards and then Elizabeth will get into related accountability measures as far as school performance ratings and district letter
grades since those are not established in Act930 of2017. she'll be approaching those as well as Adrianne and providing detailed student achievement results related to the systems and then lastly a statutorily required will be lizabeth will take you through fiscal distress and facilities distress. So first with Arkansas standards to fully understand the Arkansas's academic standards that we have today we can look back at the ways that the state
has established a state's curriculum and set up accountability systems in response to Lakeview. Specifically we're going to review the state curriculum as reference in the definition of adequacy and the expectations enacted in three different pieces of legislation. So beginning in 1997 we have the Public Education Act which established several specific state goals but overall for Arkansas to provide a quality educational opportunity for every public school student the academic goals for
students were to graduate academically competent students and as as elizabeth taylor discussed yesterday over the course of the Lakeview decisions, the Supreme Court and master's conclusions were identifying ways that the Arkansas general assembly was working towards defining adequacy This act was identified in the Lakeview case 2002 as well on its way The following acts in 2003, the Quality Education Act or Act 1467 as well as Act 1761, both
were identified as an a good beginning towards an assessment of curricula specifically with improvement to show in5 to10 years and so as we are past 10 years past those dates, I will go through each of these acts a little bit in detail. and identify the ways that they are related to academic standards. So in Act 1108, also known as the Publicducation Act. the overall goal for the state of Arkansas was that its public school education system will raise student achievement in a
basic curriculum increase graduated students as well as the courses required and ensure overall that students are graduating prepared for society, college career and communities specifically it identified that public schools in Arkansas should graduate academically competent students qualified teachers as far as several other goals but overall make sure that they are supported and assisted by the state where necessary. as far as it's public education students or public school students they were expected to
achieve competency meet required standards in several academic areas as you see here these were identified as well as several other skills and competencies and expectations for the public schools which included requiring that they offer vocational courses and that students receive instruction in music and education as well. music and art education excuse me So the quality Education Act also referred to the omnibus Act of 2003 established our comprehensivec accountability system thatelizabeth went over
in yesterday so I won't get too deep into those. However, as far as the curriculum frameworks that were developed those were in place as well as the requirements for accreditation and schools and public school districts to meet those standards for accreditation this act amended the 1983 Act which required the state board to develop comprehensive rules criteria and minimum standards and so in 2003 they removed the word minimum and required schools to meet all of the standards for accreditation
while most of this act was repealed by Act9:30. also known as theducational Support and Accountability Act which I'll refer to as the stateccountability Act several items including the fiscal and academic distress measurements remained in statute until the repeal of them in 2017. Following the passage of that act as well as identifications from Lakeview and the Supreme Court. the acade the adequacy definition was updated by the
joint Educationittee our jointittee on Educational adequacy to include the standards included a grade grade level curriculum, a mandatory 38 units all defined by the stands for accreditation which specifically was or which was still defining what was to be taught at the high school level. and taught to students broadly So now that we have a state
curriculum Act 1761 specified more along the identifications of content standards for coursework. this is where our curriculum frameworks were reviewed by the state boardard of Education and established an ongoing review for both the division of s s elementary and secondary education and the state board in which curriculum frameworks were meaning the contentsific standards per subject area in core academic areas that you see here though most of this act has been
repealed in statute the Desi rules governing this law have been and the desi rules governing this law have not been revised since 2005. Statute still requires that each public school district provide written assurance that the course content in each class and subject area is consistent and aligned to board approved standards and that is measured by the statement of insurance provided by each superintendent.
So in the last several years in the last 20 years the academic standards have been referred to by several different names as far as the accreditation standards that govern them and talking about them fully we need to understand that there are several different references but they do identify what students are expected to learn in the public school system as well as the criteria that they're expected to meet and in defining defined specific areas
So so sorry so that we don't have an exact de definition of academic standards in statute or in rules we do know that the curriculum standards established so far are defining what students are to be taught Over the years academic standards has included a description of expectations and as well as the have included a description of academic expectations as well as specific courses that have been included to what
students needed to be educated in to graduate as academically competent. we also have a description of these standards identified in the adequacy definition but as far as the Arkansas rules governing the standards for accreditation of Arkansas public schools and school districts academic standards are defined as the curriculum that's provided to each student in an academic system of each public school district. there is a definition for written curriculum that
identifies the sequences used to teach the Arkansas academic standards but again the actual phrase academic standards is not defined explicitly how as of the act of the act State Accountability Act it did direct Desi to define establish and define academic standards that cover what students shall know and be able to demonstrate in each content area. these standards are both established by desi and published by desi but state board approves them According to the division of
Learingerviervices the standards and their courses outline academic expectations for the state The Accountability actct defines English language arts as the academic standards for English reading and writing and so with history, geography and civic standards encompassed by social studies.everal of these areas identified in Act 1761 of2003 as well as the competencies identified in 1997 which include computer science and other technologies as well as practical economic and consumer skills can now be be found in
desse's Arkansas academic standards published on their website they have additional standards related to those sin skills and expectations for fine arts, health and safety education and physical education as well as library media standards and world languages. ar t of theccountability Act was to make sure that these standards were periodically reviewed and revised to ensure that they were rigorous and prepared students for college career and community engagement which is also referred to as college and career readiness in other parts of rules and statute.
So while stateccountability Act called for the review of these standards, the rules identify what this review must entail, which includes review and input from Arkansas communities as well as an assessment and consideration and study from external sources and national organizations generally this review has been provided on a sixyear cycle according to Desi. However, they are frequently updated in response to legislation or changes as needed as part of the accountability system established the core subjects and
excuse me so sorry the core academic subjects areas were not identified in statute. However, Dezzi has kept the same content areas for the last several years and they are each provided with grade spans specifics and courses. so for example, social studies will include perhaps a kindergarten through3rd grade expectations and identify per subject area and academic course what that student needs to meet at each level as far as what's needed to meet the follow
to prevent progress to the next level of academic academic achievement So lastly we'll be reviewing the standards for accreditation. is is codified at Title6 in the code of Arkansas rules and these standards all work to reinforce that the academic standards are available and accessible to all students and that all students have an equal opportunity and access to the state's curriculum. this is not an exhaustive list
of the changes and revisions that have made standards but I have provided here the more substantial changes that have been made so in 2015 the legislator legislature changed what considered a course to be taught as far as the required courses which were previously outlined in the rules governing standards for accreditation. However, in2018 1 of the bigger overhauls of these standards included the removal of those specific content standards and so those identifications of geometry algebra concepts statistics that were specific
that you saw earlier in those acts we're now summarized in nine sorry and different content areas by greats grade level and of courses that were required to graduate as well as the courses required to be taught each year were also removed from the rules governing and Desi is now publishing this separately each year.
so general generally the academic standards do outline activity for students required instruction and the required curriculum as identified as an adequate education and a definition of adequacy currently the public school district's board of directors must adopt an curriculum aligned to the academic standards but as I mentioned those standards are not explicitly outlined in these rules anymore. They are however provided content areas by grayle which are kindergarten through grade4, grades5 through 8 and then grades 9 through 1el which
are often referred to as just at the high school level because the academic standards prepare students to demonstrate achievement. They include a lot of the competencies that are published All students in grades kindergarten through 1elth grade are instructed and required to have annual instruction in English language arts or ELA mathematics, scienceence, fine arts, social studies, health and safety andPE grades5 through 1el also get instruction in career and technical education. These are pretty similar to the
identifications or the content areas that Dezzi has established in their academic standards and in addition the standards for accreditation provide equal a ensure equal access to a rigorous core curriculum by requiring AP course offerings in these course subjects of math, English, language arts, science and social studies following the passage of actc the Arkansas Access Act of 225 and accelerating learning course will be able to be met be taken to fulfill that requirement to ensure that students are still
getting access to a rigorous core curriculum as well as the core academic standards So current technical education not included in dese's academic standards as required for the review for this adequacy study. however it is one of the topics that we've elected to cover at the request of the committee in past years. It is also consistent with the definition of a adequacy which was added specifically to include and
reflect the standards for career and technical education as it was recommended in 2018. so because they're separate and grade spans the rules governing the standards for accreditation identify what's required for the middle school grade levels which according to the rules governing a career readyad pathway to diploma include four career awareness activities this is new for the 2425 school year it was passed in 2023. The requirements for each of these activities is just to ensure that the student is participating in something that
links what they want to do in life to what they do in school. According to those rules there are several different criteria but overall the division of s career and technical education approves which activities are provided at each public school. within the re within the required units for ninth graders and through 1elth graders Dezzi rules require that one of the pathways offered must be designated by the department as high wage and high growth and the pathways and programs of the pathways offered must be designated by the department as high wage and high growth and
the pathways and programs that these this career pathways in CTE programs of studies were also recently revised in 2025 for full implementation in 2029 to make sure that these students are participating in pathways that are designated according to Arkansas's sorry labor standards and statistics and those are the there were 16 of those pathways identified this past school year. So back to what's included in the rules governing the
standards for accreditation, additional instruction in Arkansas history is also required for all grade levels it's embedded in social studies at the elementary level and then required to be taken as a semester course before graduation beginning at the beginning with seventh grade there's also additional instructional time outlined for recess which is consistent with the health and activity academic standards as well as music and visual and performing arts instruction and for grades one through 8. Separate rules govern these
sections but in in those rules academic standards is defined as disciplinebased documents approved by the state board for those specific areas of content so visual and performing arts have their own standards
Speaker 32
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and the instructional time for all three of these is a minimum of40 minutes of a school day. you'll notice
Speaker 26
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that these aren't these areas are broadly consistent with those academic areas of kindergarten through grade 8 except we have computer science and foreign
languages added and the academic standards for foreign languages are identified as world languages that language was changed in statute but has not been updated in the rules just yet. These CTE requirements requiring that three pm programs of study which encompass three sequenced courses our new requirement for the 2425 school year also enacted in 2023. Previously they were requiring three different occupational areas this one identifies simply just three programs of study that must be offered one of which is one of
those high wage and high growth areas. these are the same38 units referenced in the adequacy definition that are required to be taught except where those these these same3 unit's required to be taught and identified in the adequacy definition however they are not the same required courses they are just the areas that disease identified that corresponds to those. So the courses that
The courses that correspond to those th38 units are published and approved by the state board every year. schools must offer them according to the department's required high school courses publication. they are published each calendar each school year The process requires a statement of insurance that the academic of standards and curriculum are embedded into single courses for changes made to embedded courses and the course is considered taught have been changed by Act
153 and so the chart in front of you shows the general kind of broad changes that have been made regarding these38 units so because the definition of adequacy refers to them as units and the department of Education refers to them as horses. there's a little bit inconsistent language when you're looking between rules and statute. however they are specified that the courses are required according to the rules governing standards for accreditation For2526 school year there are
actually38.5 total required credits as identified through the courses. the list itself includes over50 courses that schools were able to offer to fulfill these units. a half credit would be a semester course and so while oral communication is required under English language English language arts it is identified separately as an additional credit so the total amount is more than the38 required units. However, because of the language change
in statute while schools are required to offer these courses if no students enroll in those courses, the class is still considered taught as far as violation of the standards and so the curriculum and standards included in those courses may not necessarily be taught to each public school student each year because of the basis on student enrollment and so it's a bit of a deviation from the definition of defining of what students are to be taught Desi rule still identify which
units are included to be taught but they are not technically taught and so it's a bit of a different specific of language is similar to the difference between curriculum frameworks and academic standards but the distinction here is more significant based on what courses are actually offered in each school district. So this table is a summary of the
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required courses for high school students both required to
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graduate and those courses that are required to be offered as I just mentioned these are the38.5 credits that currently are required to be offered at each public school in the state and the specific courses are published separately by desi in the course catalog as an appendix each year. generally this differ this table is showing you the difference between those two courses. Within the list of required course offerings students could earn the minimum 222 units required to graduate. The the courses identified for both of
these columns haven't changed significantly since 2015 apart from that edition of two units sorry apart from the addition of of two additional requirements for computer science and personal f family finance standards The course requirement for computer science as you can see here is not identified as one of the 22 units but it is separate from these and so with those two courses we have a total of 24 that are required to be taken to graduate in public schools currently. The major differences
between these 232 lists are that English languages art ELA here and science fine arts have fewer courseses required to graduate and so with these courses being considered taught in compliance with standards but not necessarily taught to
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every class in the state the minimum graduation requirements are more reflective of what every publics student in the state is being taught and the academic standards being
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taught in each of those student courses
as far as pathways to graduation we have two general pathways we have traditional and alternative which has been defined for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Both of them are required to earn that minimum 22 units there are alternate academic standards provided for the alternative pathway as well as an alternate assessment program which Adrian will get into in detail when she goes over the assessment system. Theccesrey pathways you see here have been added for 2425 year also this is the first year that students were able to start that pathway
dees's identified these two different ways as a diploma with merit and a diploma with distinction which is the difference between the credential that's earned at the end of that graduation pathway and so for further detail here a credential of value is meant to be earned at the end of both of those pathways. it depends on which credential is earned that makes that distinction between merit and distinction diploma. Success ready generally is just identifying what students will be graduating with which includes the knowledge, skills and abilities and habits chosen
on their path which umdCdCTE is identified as anything that would result in including but without limitation enlistment enrollment and employment the standards for accreditation generally reinforce the state's expectations and beyond the statutory requirements there are additional requirements for the career readyady pathways and so according to rules the minimum academic core required for graduation that 22 plus those additional two courses required are also embedded with careo and technical courses in these cases
and so for the first time in 2425 school year, a career readyad pathway to diploma was identified and this is more consistent with the requirement that schools offer the high wage and high demand jobs as you can see here there's a difference in language and statute and in rules. According to DCTE their H2 designation is high wage high demand but the credential is also demonstrating the Arkansas layout the Arkansas labor market's high wage and high growth fields.
So in addition to those graduation requirements we have a review of past legislation that are related to the academic standards so as I'd mentioned earlier the review of the academic standards is on a cycle but pursuant to legislation, the socialcial studies academic standards are going to be reviewed and updated by the 262se school year to include the following requirements based on the US government systems. there's also an additional unit dedicated to the veterans and their families that's to be embedded in Arkansas history
courses which would include those units in social studies at the elementary level and then that separate course at the secondary schools and lastly we have two acts that were embedded to be included in the academic standards wherever early at the earliest grade appropriate. the firearm safety instruction is to be developed in consultation with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the discussion of human fetal growth and development is to be made in
discussion in consultation approval by the department of healthalth. Both of these are going to be implemented I'm sorry bothth of these legislations have not identified an implementation year but they have required that they are embedded sorry the firearm safety hasn embedded in 2526. the discussion of human and fetal growth development has not identified a specific implementation year but they are going to be implemented whatever relevant standards and so desi's discretion they will identify which ones those will
get implemented and at what point they get revised in the academic cycle. so in summary by applying the definition of adequacy we've got two broadways to describe and review academic standards for students in Arkansas. We have what's to be taught which is included in what's the state curriculum and the academic system implemented in each public school what students should be demonstrating through achievement as measured by the standards included in the state's state's testing system for the adequacy definition but also corresponds to state
Accountability Act and so Deie's established academic stand Arkansas academic standards are defining what students should be should know and be able to demonstrate at the end of each course and so comprehensively we identify the weights of the curriculum and standards are connected to each other and define what students are expected to know as far as the accountability systems in place to monitor that we have the standards for accreditation and the systems thatelizabeth will take you through
Speaker 20
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excuse me. so now we'll move on to our accountability systems. so is Lea just described the standards in the curriculum frameworks are defining what Arkansas students need to know what we want Arkansas students to be able to know and be able to do the accountability systems are the methods for ensuring that students are actually learning what's in the standards we do have a federal and a state accountability system and we're going to go through both of those we're going to start with the federal law which is the
every student succeeds Act which we'll refer to as assad yeah excuse me As we remember from the statute and as Leah mentioned earlier one of the requirements in the adequacy statute for the is for the committees to review the as a the state standing under S. let me interrupt you for just a second.
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
38:55
I think we had a couple of member
questions or at least one so I don't want to get too far down into another
presentation before we address those if that's all right uhpresentative Duke you're recognized thank you Mr
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
39:11
Chair. I know everyone's surprised that I would have a question. I didn't want to disappoint anybody today so my question is kind of a I guess I had a couple of questions about the act in 2003 and it referenced the waivers and then my understanding from your presentation is that at one
time they were not allowed to have waivers and then is that because I know you said
a lot of that's been repealed so was that portion of that where they could not they could at that from the when it was repealed then they could ask
Speaker 26
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for waivers in those areas. Yes, so regarding the required courses and so anything identified is what a required course in the standards for accreditation from I believe it's Act 1015 of2007 that granted the authority to provide waivers for those courses and so from 2007 to2015 they had waivers and they could request and petition the state board for
a waiver for not or not teaching and offering one of those required courses and so Act853 of2015 repealed the requirement that they petition for a waiver and then just decided and redetermined what a course considered as taught would mean and so that was if they could provide a schedule that included that course if they had
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qualified personnel to teach the course but no eligible student or any student enrolled to take that course then that would still be considered taught and they wouldn't need a waiver to submit saying that they couldn't teach the course because it was now
considered to be taught because they offered and attempted to offer and teach the course to students. So
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
40:46
is that the only area the waivers or their ability to apply for or
not apply for waivers is that the only area that that was as far as the course offering that that addressed. It did not address any other areas of applying for waivers. so there's
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41:02
there's separate waiver authority broadly in state statute for
Speaker 26
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the rules for these yeah for the rules governing standards for accreditation one of those
waivers is the request to embed and combine curriculum courses or curriculum into one course and so that was the embedded content and so that still requires a waiver those are submitted to the state board. Other waivers as far as becau because the standards for accreditation include more than academic standards right so we have the requirement that they have library media specialists the requirement that they have guidance counselors all those just public school system requirements each of those waivers are are covered in just broadly
Speaker 32
41:42
by way of authority which is I think in rules just defined it something that
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
41:47
they can do for the state board. OK so that it was kind of waiver specific in that instance. OK my next question is I guess for the chairs and for staff I I would think if we could do it it would be helpful to have at least for me a kind of chart comparison of this is what because we went through those different acts and then you talk about well this is repealed and this is not and and I would find it beneficial if we could have it in a chart so we could see
what was it 972003 and see when things came and when they went because there may have been some things that were there, they got repealed that we might want to look at maybe we shouldn't have repealed that maybe that didn't go so great when we changed that but it's kind of hard to to seek compare and contrast through I mean the presentation was great and thank you so much because I know it's a lot of work and I really appreciate it. I find it fascinating but just for me to glance and to look at and to kind of see analyze a little bit more if it would be possible to have it in that type of format.
I think that would be that would be helpful for me. I know that is I'm hoping chatgpT world that would not I mean I know you do more than that but to be able to put in a chart that type of format would be really great at least I think for us to utilize as
we go forward and review if that's possible if staff says it's possible then I'm sure it's great they're they're generally more
competent than chad GpT so I know they are yes it's possible we can do that mean I'm hoping it's not a significant amount of work it's
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
43:16
just that layout I think would just be at least like I said at least helpful for me to see how it's kind of progressed at a snapshot are you
Speaker 26
43:23
wanting the those transitions for the course curriculum and state curriculum specifically. I would just like the trans the laws transitioned
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
43:29
and I don't again I don't know how encompassing that is because I know you mentioned that you didn't really go into detail all the different aspects maybe that were repealed and I appreciate that but and so I don't know how detailed that is and that's why I was a little concerned I don't I don't want to put you've done a tremendous amount of work here
already but it I would like to see by that kind of detail just because it helps us to see where we were why maybe one legislature changed something and the legislature may want to come back and either implement or maintain or tweak a little bit more and being able to contrast that progression in a chart form I think would be in much easier reading at least this was great.
I don't want but if any seemed critical of this at all it was great it's just kind of the ease of comparing them I think you've sparked my interest to where I'd like to be able to do that a little bit more in depths
Speaker 26
44:19
yeah I can say that the Quality Education Act of 2003 which Elizabeth talked about yesterday is very similar in structure to Act930 that established the current state accountability system it's really in several instances is a matter of substitution of words and so curriculum frameworks for academic standards, No Child Left Behind for every student succeeds Act previously as the actA which is Arkansas Comprehensive Testing and assessment and accountability programme substituted for the new system
and so yeah so we can go through those comparisons of because those have been the two systems that we've had so far is that it was 2003 and then out 2017 so we cross compare those ones as well as the changes and requirements in each of those that that would
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
45:05
be that would be fantastic. I really appreciate your willingness to work with me on that one thank you thank you Mr chairir. you re continue thank you
Speaker 82
45:17
moving back to the every student succeeds actct a few notes
Speaker 20
45:23
about how Sa works Essa has requirements in a number of broad areas fors states. Each state is required to submit an as a plan to the federal department of Education for review and approval Arkansas's plan was most recently approved as amended in 2022. so the six categories that you see on your screen are the six categories that Adrian and I are going to take you through in this section for each of these categories we're going to show you what as
it requires what is included in Arkansas's plan for how Arkansas is going to meet that as a requirement and then what's currently And we'll start with academic standards and assessment as it requires that the state have challenging academic standards in English language arts or reading mathematics and science and as you as you know from Leh's presentation in the state does have academic standards for each of those subjects and then regarding assessment the state
has to have an assessment and it must contain at least three levels of achievement so under the Arkansas plan Arkansas mess schools must administer assessments to at least 95% of their students annually and this is a requirement in Arkansas and student at schools can be held accountable for violations of the standards if they are not testing at least 95% of students and then Arkansas summit of assessments in English language arts math and science have four levels of achievement Adrianne
is gonna talk more about those in a few minutes. I do want a note here in the Arkansas Ea plan at the time that as alan was originally passed the Arkansas was administering the assessment known as the ACT aspire as of 2024 Arkansas now administers the atlas examination but the as thepla continues to refer to the ACT
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
47:19
aspire. The next as a requirement is a
Speaker 20
47:28
statewide accountability system. Arkansas does have a statewide accountability system that is the Arkansas Educational Support and Accountability Act and following our Ss section Adrianne and I will take you through that accountability act and now I'll turn it over to Adrian for our next couple
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
47:44
sessions. Thank you. So with that we're going to get into the S
Speaker 86
47:50
a student achievement progress portion so we're gonna get into some of the achievement data
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
47:59
and so within that we're going to get into some of the long term goals laid out in Esa on student achievement specifically within Arkansas's assa plan how that's being met and then available corresponding data. to start us off here are the first set of achievement requirements from Esa so states are required to set long term goals on proficiency on annual statewide assessments towards English language progress towards English language proficiency and high school graduation rates
to meet those Arkansas's sa plan first created in 2018 and last approved by the US Department of Education in 2022 sets four long term goals meaning they have to be met by 2030. so the first achievement goal is to have 80% of students achieving a testbased gradeleve proficiency score in ELA and math while science is required to be assessed scienceence is not included in the long term achievement goals
next we have an as a plan a goal of52% of English language excuse me English language students on track to English language proficiency and 94% 4 year graduation rate in a 97% 5 year graduation rate d d ition ally as part of the long term goals Arkansas's ESA plan includes internal checkpoint goals to help determine progress towards that 2030 goal so we'll include those as available throughout this portion.
The next set of Sa requirements include student growth or another indicator that allows for meaningful differentiation of school performance this is achieved in Arkansas's ESA plan through the EA school index score.
Speaker 92
49:51
This measures academic achievement, English language proficiency graduation rates and school quality and success indicators.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
49:58
d d ition ally asa requires that this particular goal in the previous two goals of the last slide encompass economically
disadvantaged students students of racial and ethnic major racial and ethnic groups excuse me children with disabilities and English learners so they required copies as a student subgroup so we'll see those throughout as well so in Arkansas's assa plan their student subgroups include African American students Hispanic or Latino students white students economically disadvantaged students which in Arkansas this refers to students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunch English learnarer students and
then students with disabilities or those in special education So as noted earlier, Essa requires states to have at least three performance levels on their statewide assessments and you heard that under Atlas the statewide assessment used in Arkansas this includes four that are shown here excuse me for the review of student proficiency levels in this portion we're gonna look primarily at the
percentage of students scoring level three or four proficient or above. So with that atlas assessments for grades3 through 10 assess in three main subjects English language arts, math and science. so you'll notice math
Speaker 92
51:27
and scienceence here only go up to 8th grade that is because 9th and 10th grades include end of course assessments and specific
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
51:35
subjects including algebra geometry and biology that we
Speaker 92
51:45
section. in 2025,35% of students score proficient or above in English language arts or ELA 39 % in math and then38% in science all of these were increases were from the previous 24 school year. so broken out by the gray level starting with English language arts you'll see here in 2025 all
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
52:13
grade levels had between31% and39% scoring proficient or above in 25 which is a mix of increases and decreases from the previous school year. Next we have that grade level by math. so in 2025 all grade levels had between32% and43% scoring proficient or advanced which were mostly increases from the previous year with the exception of fifth grade which had a slight decrease in 2025.
Finally we havecience so all grade levels here had between37 and39% scoring level three or four proficient or advanced and all of these were increases from the previous school year. then we have those proficiency levels broken out by our Ss a student subgroups so across all three subjects English learner students had the lowest percentage of students scoring proficient or above ranging
from5% in ELA to11% in math white students had the highest percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced ranging from42% in ELA to48% in math So our next long term goal within ESA is to have52% of English learners on track to English language proficiency by 2030. So to be considered on track for English language proficiency an English learner student must meet one of the following criteria so they have
to either exit status as an English learner student they have to meet time expectations on three or more domains within the AlPA21 The LPpa 21 is the alternate assessment used specifically for English language learner students and we'll get into those specific results a little bit later today and then the third expectation or the third criteria I should say is to meet time expectations on non all nonexempt upA domain so this is very specific to that AlPA21 exam that we'll get into a
little bit later. So this chart
Speaker 92
54:25
using this chart shows the percentage of English learners on track to English language proficiency going back to
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
54:32
2018 which was when getting that that's the plan went into effect so we're going back and to that original baseline. so you'll see in 201844% of all English learners were considered on track
that decreased to38% and21 and then back up to41% in2024, which is the most recently available data for this measure. For English learners students with disabilities and long term students that percentage on track remained below all students for all years reported here so the box is in green these are our interim checkpoint goals that were listed in the EA plan as kind of ways to kind of monitor progress towards that
2030 goal so you'll see in 2018 Arkansas's percentage of all students on track exceeded that goal and then fell just below those goal
Speaker 97
55:28
checkpoints for 2021 and then 2024. Moving on to graduation rates so we have two
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
55:40
of these we have a four year graduation rate and a five year so four year refers to students who graduate at high school in four years and then
um5 years of course refers to those graduating within5 school years excuse me for years bothth include those with a regular diploma as well as those with significant cognitive disabilities who earned a state defined alternate diploma. Arkansas's EA plan sets a four year graduation rate goal of 94% by 2030 Similarly we have progress goals here shown in yellow and they're a little bit different that they begin in 2019.
so almost as of 2019, almost 88% of Arkansas students graduated high school in four years just under that progress goal of 88.76 in2019. Arkansas's four year graduation rate increased to 88.2% in2022. and then fell below that progress goal of 90.5. as of 2024 in the most recently available data we have for this 89% of Arkansas students graduated high school within four years.
then we have our four year rates by our Ss student subgroups so white students had the highest four year graduation rate with 91% and then
Speaker 98
57:12
English learner students had the lowest of 83% for the 2024
Speaker 92
57:20
school year. Next our five year graduation rates. So
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
57:24
again the 2030 goal is 97% so in 2019, just over 90% of Arkansas students graduated within five years exceeding that
progress goal of 87% where you of almost 87%. and then that five year rate decreased to almost 90% in2022 which just missed the progress goal of 90.2 for that year. As of2024, that five year graduation rate was 90.2% overall. and then finally our five year graduation rates for our Ss student subgroups. similarmilarly similar pattern here with the foyer rates, English learners had the lowest
five year graduation rate of 85% and then white students had the highest with 92%. so that includes a student achievement portion and I'll hand it back toelizabeth to for the next category. Our next category is school support
Speaker 55
58:18
and improvement activities let me interrupt you just one moment Elizabeth we
have a question we would all be disappointed if we didn't
have a question from Representative Duke. So Representative Duke you're recognized for a question you Mrir I'm glad not to
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
58:35
disappoint so my question is can do you know offhand right now and if not can you get to us the year that we were the highest on this percentages on our on our proficiency so you have you start at 2018 and on all of
those on your English language and stuff could you can you give us the highest year that we have on record and the lowest year that we have on
Speaker 106
58:59
record. not offhand but we can certainly
Speaker 86
59:01
get that to you for the English learners and the
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
59:06
graduation rates and we of course have older percentages for the statele per pers the state level assessments but we just don't include them because they're not comparable because they're ACT aspire and then AApp and so that is a little bit different but for the other two measures we can certainly get
Speaker 96
59:20
that. Well they're they're testing relatively over the same standards
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
59:23
all these years. I mean we those different tasks whether it's ACT aspire or whether you all the
way to benchmark world and I know we changed the standards a little bit over time but some of the basic things are still there the
basic things we want them to teach so even though I understand it's not apples to apples this is close to apples to apples as we're gonna get looking at those tests. So I would like to know I mean you can put like an asterisk or whatever by it as far as this is an ACT aspire or this is a benchmark exam but to be able to look back and see in history if there's a time period that we had 80% on anything or60% on anything. I think it behooves us to go, OK, what were we doing then that we're not doing now and if it's not
comparable that's fine but I I think it would be useful for us to see because the 2018 and I understand the shot but I I'd like to know the highest we've ever had and the lowest we've ever had so then we can go look or maybe ask more questions of you all ok what was going on at that time period if that's I wouldn't think that would be that big of a absolutely not we definitely have
Speaker 110
1:00:25
that information and can get that to you pretty quickly. thank you. I appreciate that that's the
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:00:31
only one I had makes you recognized thank you chairman. Well I've got two so I can top Representative Duke. so my my first question with these
benchmarks are there any penalties if we fail to meet those benchmarks or does the federal government provide more resources? what is the ramifications of failing to meet those benchmarks. so if you're referring to the interim ones. I'm not aware of any
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:00:52
penalty for that in terms of the long term goals I don't know for sure what the ramifications of that would be that might be a question for the department if there's for those large like 2030 goals I'm not sure about those I just kind of be curious if it's we'd like you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:01:10
to meet them you know if you do great if you don't no big deal you know what's the point right? so my second question is in the learns actct we included tutors to try to help with reading proficiency to bring those up for our third grade students. When might we start seeing or have we already started seeing the impact of that on the student test scores for the 3rd and 4th grade classes. what would we already start seeing that or is that something that will start seeing
this year to know what kind of impact
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:01:45
those are having. overall I would say that's probably that out of expertise in terms of measuring effectiveness of the that program we'll look at gradele results for 3rd and 4th for that level for reading and for writing as well in a later portion so we can see the 24 and25 but I can't say confidently if that's gonna reflect that or not that would be better answered by the department but I also say to the accountability piece for the long term goals even thoughlizabeth will get into we
there are other accountability measures that may or may not be directly tied to those long term goals but do look at other measures that within the achievement system to look at other ways of supporting districts that might not be meeting those OK all right thank you Representative Andrews thank you Mr chairir
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
1:02:32
the slides with the graphs it to me it showed looks at you know pre pandemic we had higher rates and then they took a maybe one or two back before then
yeah you know you had higher rates right there before the pandemic we took a nosed dive of the pandemic how long before we get to pre pandemic rates and fix the errors of the shutdown
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:02:57
that's a good question I don't think I would be able to I think that might be better by the department they're more familiar with that level of information on
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
1:03:05
the we've we've we've ruined a generation of kids by send them home and not letting them learn Represent Mayberry
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:03:17
thank you. I'm I'm just curious that 80% goal that that's our our state has set that as the goal that
may not be the same goal that other states have and I understanding that correctly? That's correct. every state has
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:03:31
a different plan so they'll have different goals different mechanisms in place for how they measure it so but Arkansas's is 80% for so so going beyond that let's just say other states do have 80% or something like that
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:03:48
or or do you know what other states have set as their goal and has any state met that? I mean we're down here in the the thir0s in our goal is 80% yes we want it that high but has any state achieved that do you know I'll letelizabeth take a look at that I think
Speaker 110
1:04:05
or answer that I know we could definitely look at other states I don't know
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:04:12
offhand but I'll see ifelizabeth has any more information on that. I haven't looked
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:04:19
specifically at other states asa plans but I'd be happy to look into that
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:04:23
for you. OK thank you. just curious how we compare I know we're way down there but I want to be realistic.
Thank you and would say think it'd be helpful to have a comparison on a state by state maybe at a at a future meetingpresent Mayberry it's you know when you look at things like NApe scores there's a lot of consistency in terms of lack of progress even the last40 years and most states are are relatively low
frankly and so I think it'd be interesting to every state obviously has their own testing mechanisms individually so I think it'd be interesting to compare perhaps what how how states have progressed with their own testing mechanisms versus maybe whatApe scores look like which could be instructive for us moving forward. Representative painter you recognize Thank you Mr chairir I just kind
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:05:15
of want to follow down the line of questions my good friend fromcamden was going down.
you know on the English language proficiency, you know, I I get it we had the pandemic what year did we test? Was that I
Speaker 134
1:05:32
don't think we tested in 21. we did test in 2021. so so
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:05:36
would it be so with that almost 10% decline safe to say that that's a reflection on on that year
before correct for this particular measure
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:05:47
this is not referencing a specific test.
These are students who are meeting those eligibility criteria to be considered on track so this is not a tie to a specific assessment it has components that are connected to it but this this chart right here is not tied specifically to the test but that may still be a time wise that still might be part of it in terms of the COID response. OK thank you for explaining that. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't aware. thank you. thank
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:06:12
you members you can continue with the presentation I will note first Adrian is gonna
Speaker 20
1:06:23
get into someApe scores later in the presentation. so we'll see some of those later our next essa category is school support and improvement activities. The essay requirement is that states must have a method for identifying districts that are in need of support and providing that support Arkansas as a plan has three categories of school support we'll see those in a couple of slides the exit criteria requires the school to demonstrate continued progress
by an upward trend on the Ss school index for two+ years and meet or exceed their initial Ss school index score so the Ss school index we'll see on the next slide and so that's the manner that the that the as a planned states that districts will be identified for support. Here you can see the calculation for the Ss school index this is in the S a plan it's the method for meaningfully
differentiating schools as required under SA you can see that it includes weighted achievement growth, progress to English language proficiency, the 4 and5 year graduation rates all of which adrian just discussed and the school quality and success indicator. the school quality and success indicator is calculated on a per student basis so you'll see obviously some of those ACT scores, high school GPA are only applying to high schools but
for any student who's not in a high school those categories would not be included in their scores so it's
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:08:00
possible for every school to have a score for the school quality and success indicator. Now looking
Speaker 20
1:08:09
at those three categories of support these come from the Arkansas as a plan under the as a plan these are calculated using those Sscal index scores and districts and schools are removed based on their progress on the Esa school
index. the asiscal index has currently not been calculated for 24 and25 according to the department, the last identification for schools occurred in 2022 and those schools will be exiting support this year. and al'll turn it back to Adrian. thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:08:46
you so our next category within an Ea regards equitable access to educators so as a required states to describe how they will ensure
low income and minority students excuse me are not taught disproportionately by ineffective out of field or inexperienced educators to meet that requirement Arkansas's EsA plan requires the department to identify schools who receive Title I funding these are schools that have at least40% or more of students eligible for free or reduced price lunches so they're gonna look at those schools and then how many of those are have disproportionate rights of these educators
and then Arkansas's plan goes on to state that any districts with disproportionate rates would be required to attend quity labs and develop other plans to get to better target support. to achieve those access goals laid out Arkansas's ESA plan. Desi is used to or desi is to identify these title one schools using the following measures so we have the high poverty high minority report this was developed by the division and reports progress towards
ensuring that low income and minority children in Title I schools are not disproportionately served by these teachers that was last reviewed or last produced for the 23 school year so we walk on a review that here and then we also have the workforce stability index. This refers to a desired measure of workforce quality used to identify districts and schools with potential access gaps to target resources to help close those gaps
no available no excuse me Donnata is available for this index for the 24 and25 school years so they're not going to be included here as well as previously noted desi also uses equity labs for this purpose via the as noted in the EA plan these were last for these were recommended to begin in the spring of 2018 with at least 15 per school year beginning in the 2019 school year that we don't have any evidence show that those have occurred since then and then lastly we have the
school report card. This refers to a comprehensive report of state and federal accountability and reporting measures from desi including measures to help determine these disproportionate rates of a teachers and so we do have some data from that for the 25 school year that will go over next. Quick terminology though that before we get into that so we're gonna refer to high poverty and the low poverty schools within that and this refers to the highest and lowest quartile of schools based on their
concentration of students who are eligible for free or reduced price lunches. So before I get into this data I do want to note that the report card doesn't differentiate by title one status but strictly by high poverty and low poverty schools. so the charts are going to show us the percentage of effective teachers as determined by tests which is the teacher excellence and support systems this is the statewide system used to evaluate stu teachers across the state
Speaker 86
1:12:04
so the chart here is gonna show how these rights of teachers vary by
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:12:11
different economic levels of schools so for the for 22 through 24 so you'll see here the overall percentage across all schools you know the overall percentage of effective teachers under S tests excuse me that decreased from 92% in23 and then up to 96% in20 up to excuse
me to7% in2024. which is the most recently available data we have for that and then you'll see on the other side of that for 22 and24 students in the lower poverty schools had a higher rate of effective teachers than those in the high poverty schools. Our second measure from the school report card shows the rate of inexperienced teachers and that is defined as teachers within their first three years of teaching
so the overall percentage of inexperienced teachers decreased across all schools from 25% in2022 to19% in24. that rate also decreased similarly across high and low poverty schools though the percentage remained higher in high poverty schools and then we don't have any data regarding the percentage of teachers teaching out of fields so we're not going to include that here from the report card but the next available other using other data available from
the division we have some additional analysis on Title I schools so we'll have a quick kind of terminology again before we get into that so emergency and provisional credentials these refer to Tipperaryitching teaching licenses allowed to someone to teach allowing someone to teach in the state of Arkansas meeting certain criteria and then againitle I schools these are those that have schools these are schools with more than40% or excuse me with more than40% of students
eligible for free or reduced price lunches. and for context of the just over 1000 schools in the state in 202579% were considereditle I. so as noted in Ea we looked atitle I schools by the rate of free or reduced price lunch eligible students and then as in minority students using three measures teachers with emergency or provisional credentials percentage of teachers
considered completely certified and then the average year of teaching experience so this chart shows that percentage of teachers with emergency or provisional credentials was twice as high in Title I schools with the highest level of free or reduced price lunch eligible students than those with the lowest levels and then the percentage of completely certified teachers was higher in schools in the lowest level of free or reduced price lunch eligible students as
Speaker 94
1:15:09
was the average year of teaching experience.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:15:12
and then looking atitle I schools byle of minority students so we see that the percentage of teachers with emergency or provisional credentials was3 times as high in Title I schools with the highest level of minority students than those with the lowest level and then the percentage of completely certified teachers was higher in schools with the lowest level of minority
Speaker 94
1:15:40
students as was the average year of teaching experience. so that
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:15:44
concludes the equitable access portion I'm gonna hand it back toelizabeth for the remainder of
Speaker 20
1:15:51
the ssa section. now we move to some slides looking at the state's standing under ESa we'll go briefly through public reporting as it does have requirements for public reporting you can see that there's a number of requirements in ESa
for the Arkansas plan, those requirements are met with the state report cards which the department is issuing as I noted before thesisc index is specifically mentioned as part of that reporting in the state as
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:16:24
a plan and that is no longer being calculated as of Looking at
Speaker 20
1:16:31
the state standing, as we saw with the academic standards the state does have academic standards and assessments for all required
subjects and for levels of achievement in that as a plan those are still currently based on the ACT aspire rather than the current assessment which is the atlas the statewide accountability system we do have a statewide accountability system which we'll discuss in just a minute. Let me interrupt just one moment. Representative garner do you have a question on the previous section
tori? in it, I apologize I'm thinking one thing looking the other way. do you have a question on the previous section? OK, you're recognized
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:17:19
I'm trying I promise thank you Mr chairir. I have a question about the previous presenter which you said about the Essa requirements equitable access to educators you mentioned on slide was that58 about the equity labs you said that they so we're not doing that or can you elaborate more on that as far as excuse me as far as I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:17:50
know I haven't seen those happening but if the vision may have more details on that than I do but as far as I know I haven't seen any reporting or anything from those if they are happening.
Speaker 146
1:17:59
Is it mandated to have thesea it's it's noted
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:18:02
in the sa plan but that's the only place that is that comes up as far as I know. OK thank you and
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:18:08
is anybody from the department of edd here? we can request that information
representative thank you springer she got ok perfect
Speaker 20
1:18:31
right you can continue to recognize thanks looking at academic achievement as we saw from Adrian's data looking at atlas scores no student group met their required the as a planned goal of 80% in2005. looking at English language proficiency the most recent checkpoint there in 202441% of
all English language students were on track and that checkpoint was43%. looking at graduation rates the most recent checkpoint for graduation rates was in 2022 and for both four year and five year graduation rates the state was just below the checkpoint level looking at school support that school support is based on the in schools school index scores that are no longer being
calculated again according to the vision those were last identified in 2022. and the public reporting the Ss school index is again not available for 24 or 25. Desie does continue to issue the report cards and as we'll discuss in a later section of the report there is a new school rating system
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:19:42
that Desi has implemented as of 2025. and finally looking at access to educators
Speaker 20
1:19:55
as Adrian discussed much of this information is not currently available and the equity labs do not appear to be occurring current
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:20:02
And I'll turn it back to Adrian. thank you so
Speaker 86
1:20:10
now we're gonna get into the Arkansasucationalupport and Accountability Act for but for ease we just
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:20:15
want to refer to that as the stateccountability Act going forward so in this law the general assembly found that the state is
responsible for providing the necessary statutory framework so that all public school students have a substantially equal opportunity to achieve and demonstrate academic readiness individual academic growth competencies through the application and knowledge and skills and core subjects that are also consistent with state academic standards. Arkansas's accountability system that was created in the Arkansas and that accountability law
closely mirrors Arkansas's EA plan so that includes challenging academic standards that are periodically reviewed and revised maintain a statewide s student assessment system that includes a variety of assessment measures establishing levels of support for public districts and maintaining information systems composed of performance indicators to identify levels of district support
and then we will review available data regarding statewides via student assessment system access to educators in district levels of support required in the Accountability Act. representative painter for a question thank you Mr Chair
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:21:42
and I apologize I was trying to press my button real quick. back on slide71 it says information on the 2024 report
cards did not provide separate data for Title I schools as required do we know why? is that
what was that last question part again slide bullet point information on 2024 report cards did not provide separate data for Title I schools as required. why ' m not sure that was Dezzi providing information and that wasn't
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:22:12
available on their website either so I'm not I would have to defer to them on the why behind that one is that requirement in statute? I don't believe that's a I think that's just in the as a plan I'm not aware of that being in statute. thank you.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:22:29
Representativeke Thank you Mr Chair. I want to follow up with that so because on on a couple of these different things on the report report card not being issued and and those different items because obviously we are here because we are required to do all of this assessment and evaluation during this are these pieces of the puzzles that we should be making sure are being done or do we have the flexibility to say no or the department had the flexibility
to say we don't have to issue these report cards or we don't have to have this data up or whatever these things are is that can you can you enlighten me on where how that falls as far as us being in compliance with what we're supposed to be
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:23:15
doing the only thing I can I know for sure that I know there is a because of a transition between plans that know that it has accounted for some of the lack of information but I don't know for sure the details of that other other than thatelizabeth I don't know if you wanted to add any more on
Speaker 94
1:23:30
the compliance piece of it this is all
Speaker 20
1:23:35
information that's required under the EA plan it'd be up to as I understand it it'd be up to the federal government to enforce
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:23:42
that I don't know of any I don't know what that enforcement mechanism would look like. So this is separate from what
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:23:49
we are required to do under our adequacy in those
pieces or do we fold this in to meet some of our adequacy requirements I see our administrator Jasmine ray coming down so I'm gonna
Speaker 162
1:24:13
introduce yourself and you recognize. Chas and ray bureau
Speaker 163
1:24:16
of legislative Research. So as we went over yesterday, part of the continuing education continuing what adequacy evaluation actct which is the entire adequacy what we're here for it stipulates that part of the duties of the legislature is to review our stand Arkansas's standing under the S under SI and so the way we go about that
is we look at everything Arkansas has stated they're going to do in that EA plan and then we report what information is available to show what our standing is and so for example with the equity labs it says in the SA plan that that's what's going to be done is Equity labs but we can't find any evidence that Equity Labs have happened. Does does that make sense? It does make sense. So do we
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:25:06
have the ability to change as as the legislature what our EA plan is
Speaker 165
1:25:15
that's a good question. I I I really do not know because I mean
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:25:19
I would assume I mean like everything things change you get more knowledge information or just perspective so you would think there would be flexibility in it but if we have said that this is what we're going to do it is our job as the body. I mean you're telling us what we're doing and what we're not doing, right and it's our job as a body to go ok well we're supposed to be doing these things so we need either make sure they're being done. I mean actually that's the legislway we're not going to get into all that but as far as the adequacy study is concern
ed we're supposed to be reviewing this to make sure we are all compliance and doing and making changes to make sure we're providing a good education to Arkansas kids and you're giving us this information and what you're saying with this information right now are these are some pieces of the puzzle that we're not saying that that we're not doing that we had said we were going to do in relation to the sa plan. that's correct and so I guess where do we find
the answer to whether we can change yes a plan or not so I don't believe
anybody from the department is here still I can't see behind the column but you know I'll I'll make a request
that that staff request that information relative to the equity labs relative to the2024 report cards from the department and we'll see
Speaker 168
1:26:25
what the response is and I think that can help us make decisions moving forward.
Speaker 169
1:26:31
I would like to add that this report this entire report
Speaker 163
1:26:35
was sent to Desi for their review. so they reviewed the report and provided feedback so they were aware that you know we would be saying we do not find evidence of Equity Labs happening so well and and of course one of my
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:26:49
questions was gonna be without what is an equity lab that raises the different questions that I have
for that as well is just trying to understand some of these this terminology and stuff as well but but in chairman Mr
Chair did you say that you were going to ask them too about our ability to change our ESA plans or we can inquire about that for sure yeah I think that would be helpful to know that we need to update these we can update these according to maybe we don't need to do things exactly I mean I like the report cards. I want us to continue your report cards. thank you appreciate that Representative Barnett you're recognized
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
1:27:20
thank you I had a quick question as it relates to graduation rates. I see that as a it's collecting data on four year and five year graduation rates but is there any provision I guess withinsa or any goals within sa on reducing dropout rates and do we have any data in that regard and when we when we are looking at the graduation
rates are we only looking at students that are still presently enrolled or is there any account given to students that have dropped out I'm not aware
Speaker 20
1:28:04
of any I don't believe thats the plan has anything related specifically to dropout rates. um, but we'd be happy to pull any data that we can find on that the graduation rates dot based on the number of students
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:28:23
so if a student say moves away from a district the graduation rate is adjusted but I don't have or
with dropout rates excuse me so you're you're stating that you're not sure that when we're
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
1:28:36
looking at graduation rates we're not giving any account to students that may have just dropped out but they're only making adjustments for students that may have transferred or moved. I'm just trying to understand
that the type of data we're tracking because that really kind of changes things if we're looking at the whole picture there definitely is data collected on dropout rates
Speaker 110
1:29:05
like Elizabeth said we can definitely provide that there are no specific long term goals
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:29:10
related to that in the ESA plan and I'm not aware of any that might be a that's obviously a component of the graduation right but in terms of who's graduating but it's not a specific measure that I'm aware of that is tracked
Speaker 86
1:29:25
within the SSA plan but we could certainly get you data outside of that to look
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
1:29:29
at I'll be interested in that. I'm just trying to understand whether or not when we're tracking graduation rates are we just basing it off of students that are currently at enrolled at the time of graduation versus you know any students that may have dropped prior to graduation. thank you Represent beck you're recognized thank you I'm gonna shift gears just a
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:29:56
little bit here but I recently read a a book and had some information concerning education and some of the fact and in the book they actually identify as a major they a major component of a child's education is the parents emphasizing the importance thereof on education that that was probably the number one factor as far as a success rate of a
student and we and we looked at a good a lot of data here and it's great data I love this state you know I like data but you know do we ever try to track is I I I don't even know how you would do it but how students along the lines is that where we have parents that are not engaged versus parents that are engaged and you know across these other attributes that we're looking at right English language learners and all that stuff to see that how much of that
is actually the result of less involvement by the parents for whatever reason you know maybe the English language learners the parents are are a bit overwhelmed or something like that but do you guys ever track any data that to deal with I'm not aware of off the top of
Speaker 110
1:31:21
my head of a lot of measures that look at that just because I'm not sure if
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:31:27
if that's been determined the best way to
actually capture that information but we would certainly be happy to look into that to see what data is available about parent engagement and get that to you and just
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:31:39
a quick comment that they made was that they they actually listed probably that private school's number
one thing that excels them is is the fact that they have a lot of parents parental engagement I guess you said you would say in education and it just seems like we look at a lot of data but we don't
look at that and and possibly how we could help parents to better understand that that you know he your engagement here is is is really key to your child's success or or at least one of the major factors of your child's success so I'd be very interested in that data Representative painter it's more a question
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:32:22
to the chairs. I know we said we might have staff reach out to the department but maybe I hope the chairs maybe would consider
a a a meeting with to have the department answer some questions I I just think it's it's kind of hard to swallow if we're gonna require certain you know individuals or schools to do certain things and then our own department's not or it's just gonna willy nilly not do certain things. I think they should be able to come to the committee and ask be answered those questions so I know our staff does a good job reaching out to the department and getting good questions but I think it would be maybe behoo of us as a committee to be able to have members ask those kind of questions
in and happy happy to have the staff put that on the agenda for the first part of the meeting next month. no additional questions you can
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:33:28
continue. so we are back to the arc this is the Arkansas Accountability Act,
the Arkansas Educational Support and Accountabilityystem. so as I said it closely mirrors components of the Arkansas's as a plan and to look at that we're gonna look at data from the statewide student assessment system atlas we're gonna look at additional data regarding access to educators and then we're going to look at data regarding district level of support So to get started with data from
the student assessment system so as required under the stateccountability Act desi is required to implement a statewide student assessment for public schools and that is accomplished with the atlas system that place ACT aspire in 2024 as you heard from Elizabeth. Students are also required to be that are enrolled in public schools are required to take statewide assessment unless they meet specific requirements for alternate assessments that will discuss more shortly
and I'll make a note here that is mentioned atlas refers to the statewide accountability usually the statewide assessment it can also refer to the statewide assessment system so sometimes it can incorporate all of the tests the atlas the ACT but it also refers strictly to the test that we'll spend some time looking at here shortly as So with this statewide student assessment system the accountability act requires Arkansas to have developmentally appropriate
measures for assessing students in kindergarten through 2nd grade as well as high quality evidence based literacy screeners for students in kindergarten through3rd grade and that is accomplished with the atlas K2 internal and summit of assessments in literacy and math and in K through third grade screeners in math and literacy as well and as at the as of today the public results from you know the results from the 2024 and25 K2s assessments
and K3 screeners have not been released yet. as a reminder Lea talked about earlier the working definition of educational adequacy is to have all or all but the most severely disabled students perform at or above proficiency on these tests so regards to that the accountability act requires state assessments to measure English language arts math and science as identified by the state board ofucation.
this is accomplished with the atlas assessments that include summitative assessments for students in grades3 through 10 as well as end of course assessments for students in 9th and 10th grades for algebra, geometry and biology. as well as the dynamic learning maps known as the DLM. This is the alternate assessment used for students with disabilities that have the most significant cognitive disabilities. So here we have proficiency levels for ELA writing and
reading for3rd through 10th grade. for the 25 school year so between31 and39% of Arkansas students score proficient or above in ELA as well as reading and then between 13 and 18% were proficient or above in writing. then we have proficiency levels for math so we have through3rd through 10th usually3rd through 8th grade and then we have algebra results and then for ninth grade in geometry results
for 10th grade and that's just due to the number of kids testing in those grades for reporting purposes but between32 and43% of third through eighth grades were fake graders were proficient or above in math.20% of students in ninth grade were proficient or above in algebra and 13% or more excuse mean 13% were a profession or above in 10th grade geometry. And then science performance by
grade so between um31 and39% of third through eighth graders were proficient or above in science and in 10th grade31% were proficient or above in biology. So results from the dynamic learning maps this is the alternate assessment and for students with disabilities so we have results here by grade level and by year for 24 and25 so in 25 between 10 and39% score
proficient or above an ELA. This is a mix of increases and decreases from the previous school year. for the math portion of that alternate assessment between7% and 19% scored proficient or above in 2025 also a mix of increases and decreases from the previous school year. and then for the science portion of that assessment between7 and 19% scored proficient or above
in 2025 that these were all decreases from their previous school year excludinginth grade in which there was no test given. so the next requirement from the stateccountability Act includes assessments of English proficiency of all English learners so this is different from that percentage of students who were on track to English language proficiency. this is gonna be results from a very specific assessment of the EPA21 and the altelLPA that we'll go over here next. so the LPA 21 this is the
English language proficiency assessment for the 21st century it's the assessment used in Arkansas and a group of other states to measure proficiency in English learners towards English language. and then the Altellpa this is the alternate assessment of English language proficiency so this is given to students who are eligible to take the dynamic learning maps assessment. So results from the alPA for 24
and25 by grade level so this shows for 2025 between6% and24% of English learners scored proficient on the AlPA21 which is a mix of increases and decreases from the previous school year and then results from the alt alpha that's incorrect that that should be the al tel I apologize but that's showing between 1% and23% scoring proficient in
2025.gain also a mix of increases and decreases from the previous school year. So the next set of requirements from our account the State Accountability Act requires assessments to measure college and career readiness and 10th through 12th grades including a career readiness assessment that leads to a nationally recognized work readiness certificate and it also includes optional additional assessments including but not limited to civics government and additional sciences.
to meet that the state assessment system includes the ACT work keys the PSAT and the long acronym the NMSQT. This is the the national merit scholarship qualifying test as well as the Arkansas civicx exam. So currently the 24 and25 results in the work keys the PSAT the national meritest as well as the civicx exam have not been released but we do have results from the ACT that we'll go over next.
so this chart shows the average composite scores of Arkansas high school seniors along with the percentage of high school seniors tested so for reference ACT composite scores range from one to being the lowest to36 being the highest Arkansas's average composite score dropped from 19 in2020 to18.5 in2024 which is the most recently available data and the percentage of students tested also decrease in this time period from 100% to95%.
So for a national comparison we're going to use that percentage of seniors tested again so according to ACT the best practice is to examine a cohort of states with similar percentages of tested graduates so that's what we've done here so these states in 2024 tested between 90 and 100% of high school graduates for the 24 school year so we're gonna look at Arkansas in comparison to these states so for the composite score the
average range from 17.2 in Nevada to 19.5 in Montana with the average of 18.4 which is where Arkansas was just above that and then a couple of other measures from the ACT is the percentage of seniors meeting readiness benchmarks for English, math, reading and science. so these benchmarks refer to ACT scores that represent the level of achievement required for students to have a50% chance of
obtaining a beer hier and about70 to85% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit bearing courses. so for English benchmarks the average percentage of high school graduates meeting those range from37% in Nevada to53% in Montana with the average being46. for math that ranged from 15% also in Nevada and Oklahoma to31% in Montana with the average at 22%.
and then for reading it ranged from 25% to41% in Nevada and Montana again respectively and finally in science that percentage ranged from 17% in Mississippi and Oklahoma to32% in Wisconsin with the average at 24%. and you'll see that Arkansas was close at or was at or close to that
Speaker 94
1:43:53
average for all four of those benchmarks. And then finally the accountability actct requires
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:44:03
participation in the national assessment of educational progress examinations this refers to the NAE. so this is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what students in public and private schools in the United States know and are able to do in various subjects. So Arkansas meets that requirement by regular participation in the NAEP which assesses students on a range of subjects in grades4,8 and 1el. and we're going to look at results from4th and 8th grade. this is the most regular
assessment given with the most recent administration in 2024 so we'll start with those results from the reading and math assessments. in 2024 between 20% and31% of fourth grade students in Arkansas scored above excuse me score proficient or above in math and reading lower than the national average which ranged from 27% to39% in2024.
So looking at these scores have they varied since 2017 for fourth grade math Arkansas percentage mirrored a similar pattern to the national average but remained below that for the last four administrations of that test. So for fourth grade reading Arkansas similarly mirrored the same pattern for the last four assessments as the national average though that gap between them did decrease in the last few administrations of that test.
and we have eighth grade math similarly Arkansas mirrored that national average between 2017 and2014 and that trajectory while remaining below that national average7 percentage points in 2024. and then finally for eighth grade reading Arkansas's percentage of eighth graders scoring proficient or above remained below the national average in 2024 though did not fully mirror that national trend of decreasing each year so in
2019 the percentage of students scoring proficient or above increased from 29 to30% whereas the national average decreased3 percentage points. So for a national comparison we looked at for additional national comparison between other states surrounding Arkansas we looked at the SEB state. so this refers to the southern regional Education Board. this is a nonpartisan nonprofit interstate compact serving 16 states on public
education policy no shape states are shown here so we're going to look at the average percentage of students scoring proficient or above in each of these four assessments that we just reviewed starting with fourth grade math so the excuse me the percentage scoring proficient or above range from31% in Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia to45% in Florida with the average at38%.
and then fourth grade reading the percentage scoring proficient or above ranged from 23% in Oklahoma to34% in Maryland with the average at30 and across these two tests Arkansas's averages sat just lower than the s the the average of these SEB states. and then results for the eighth grade assessments for these states in eighth grade math, the percentage scoring proficient or above ranged from 17% in Oklahoma
to 29% in Virginia with the average at 23% and then an eighth grade reading the percentage ranged from 21% in Alabama and West Virginia to33% in Maryland with the average at 26 and across these two tests Arkansas's percentage sat lower than the average of these SEP states as well so the next portion takes us to the access to educators section when it's just one secondpresentative Duke you're recognized
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:48:17
thank you again Mr Chair. thank you again for the presentation. a couple of questions. the first one and I don't know if you can I
I I well I assume you build answers I'd like to know how many assessments or screeners our students are taking in the different grade levels because I know it varies from grade levels in the year and if you don't have that right hand if you could get that to us and the second question I have is similar to what had what we had before can we have the highs and lows on these different
reports that you've had on this one but also on theApe I know you're just doing that southern group can you get us the high and the low in the country are those scores too absolutely we can get that to you pretty I think I mean we are competing in a in a nation worldwide for our our workforce and staff and so for us to be able to see how we're competing with across the country I think is important for us as well and I'm assuming we can't compare that very well globally but it would be nice if we could just to kind of keep perspective on that because we always need to be able to
measure what we're doing so that's all thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:49:27
you Representative Ggarner you recognize thank you Mr Chair. I've got a question and this may be for the department but you guys may know on slide 84 where we're talking about the science y grade level we dropped significantly in 25 half as much is that a difference in testing or a different in assessment or there was no change in assessment
as far as I'm aware of so I would
have to yield to the department for further explanation
great thank you but that I'm reading that right right in 25 weeks that's correct ok great thank you all the questions
you recognize to continue so that takes us to the access to educators portion of the stateccountability actct so within that statutory
requirements there are a couple here and these are similar to the ones apart from the Esa requirement. so first the general assembly says that all public school students should be taught by qualified and effective educators as well as low income and minority students shouldn't be served at disproportionate rates of ineffect ive out a field inexperienced teachers as well it also requires desi to assess if students have access to excellent teachers ed via the statec accountability system.
for this portion there's no specific requirements on how to measure that so we're gonna review a few available measures regarding teacher quality so that includes the average percentage of teachers with a bachelor's degree, the master's degree again the average percentage of teachers with emergency or provisional credentials averageage year of teaching experience and then geographic shortage areas from that comes from desi so first we pull some teacher data from Desi and analyze them by Title I status so this
is a little different from the earlier title one analysis because we're looking strictly at measures in Title One schools compared to non title one schools whereas previously we looked at concentration of student groups in thoseitle I schools. so you'll see here that Title One schools had more teachers with a bachelor's degree and fewer teachers with a master's degree initle I schools and then title one schools also had a had double the percentage of teachers working with emergency or provisional
credentials and a lower num a teacher with lower number of teaching so we're gonna break those measures out geographically, give you a sense of how that ranges across the state starting with the percentage of teachers with a bachelor's degree so this ranged from 25% to82% across traditional school districts so open enrollment public charters aren't included on the maps because they don't have geographic boundaries but for reference the average percentage
of teachers with a bachelor's degree range from33 to100%. And then we have the percentage of teachers with a master's degree ranging from 18% to75% across traditional school districts and then for those charters that ranges from0% to67%. ha n the average percentage of teachers with emergency or provisional credentials that range from0 to20% across the state with traditional school
districts again for charters that range from0% up to33%. then finally the distribution of districts by average year of teaching experience which ranged from5 to20 years across traditional school districts and then for charters that range from 1 to17 and then our final map for this section this comes from the from the division they put together an annual geographic list of
geographic shortage districts so these are the ones for the 25 school year and they determine need based on three year averages that include teacher supply and demand so districts in red have the highest need and you can see those concentrated in the southeast part of the state there and with that I will hand it back toelizabeth. Next we move into levels of support for public school
Speaker 20
1:53:57
districts let me grab a couple of questions real quick Representative in it you're
recognized thank you chairir. I had
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:54:08
a quick question can you explain what provisional credentials are I can just a second to have
Speaker 131
1:54:17
the definition here think in front of me. so provisional credentials this is
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:54:21
a threeyear license issued to an experienced professional for the purpose of teaching on a part time or full time basis as a teacher of record in an Arkansas school. so it's a threeyear
license given to somebody. there's some specific requirements they have to meet. I don't have those with me but that they
Speaker 96
1:54:40
to me to get to that license so it's not just anybody that can get that license but that's what that is. I promiseise I'm trying
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:55:05
thank you is that what is that what alternative teaching certificate is that in lines of that or is that something totally different it might be part of
Speaker 86
1:55:15
it but I believe there's some other ones that would be included in that there's some different routes I think it's that may
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:55:21
be more referring to the pathways of getting to that but this is more of a different types of licensure that might be issued within a at the state or state level, I think they're connected but I don't think they're the same thing exclusively thank you.
Speaker 151
1:55:38
Representative painter thank you Mr Chair. How many Title I and non title one schools do we have in the state and if
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:55:52
you don't have that you can get that Here,63 excuse me to do some quick maths we have 1,064 schools,79% are Title I so I don't have a calculator here in front of me that thank you it's it's a lot right thanks Representative Duke
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:56:09
thank you Mrchrry. You can see I'm rubbing off on Representative Painter here
with all the questions carerefully you sit by so my question is on the geographic shortage districts does that do we have any data that shows if since the learns and the passage of the higher teacher salaries if there's any if there's any movement in that the people are staying or going to some of these I mean I get the needs are still there but
are we seeing any improvement because the salaries have gone up is there any data that shows that? I know there's definitely data that looks at
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:56:47
that I haven't looked at it specifically that might be a part of a bigger part of our teacher report that'll be later this summer but we can certainly get some information to you in the interim if you want to look at that I
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:56:56
think that would be really helpful and also if it's incorporated in that report too but you know it's nice to see I mean I'm hopeful I know
at least I've heard in a few around that still show higher need in my area. I do know there's been a little bit more retention of some of their teachers but
what you what you see on the ground is not necessarily what's shown up in the paper and it may not be completely accurate so if we could
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
1:57:20
have that data I think that would be great thank you so much Representative
Barnes thank you chair thank you all for so much information it's this is a lot of info here but I'm wondering the stats are kind of leading us in certain directions and with the difference in the needs in your southern areas are we using
these stats to generate ideas of putting more money or something resources in these areas to bring them up. I mean we're seeing that there's a great distance between the teachers who are have the qualifications and those who don't in the south are we using this data and maybe early but are we using this data to maybe fund give more funding to these areas to bring them up I know there are programs
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:58:17
that provides support to different areas like geographic shortage areas I think there's some different benefits to there but to the broader question that's more of a question for the department and the and the legislature to what decisions need to be made or should be made
Chair
Unverified
1:58:35
regarding the data. thank you Representative macgruder you recognize
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:58:42
thank you Mr chair and thank you for this wonderful presentation
and you had said that there are some programs to help in these geographical needed areas what are some of those programs? that last part
Speaker 220
1:59:02
all thats in some areas where there's a shortages'm referring to some kind
Speaker 86
1:59:06
of teacher recruitment retention I'm thinking of those which I know we'll get more into in the teacher
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:59:12
report I think May or June is when we have that presentation I can't speak to
them more in detail at off the top of my head but there are some programs that are designed to support schools that maybe have different issues like the geographic shortage area so different areas that may not be performing as well or in different more isolated areas or along those lines but we'll certainly get that information more in the report but if you want anything in the meantime we'd be happy to provide that you said we'll get to that today? today that'll be in our teacher report I believe that's scheduled for June as of right now if you need anything in the meantime we'd be happy to get
Speaker 20
1:59:50
you some more information that would be great Now we move into levels of support for public school So under our accountability Arkansas accountability systems the division of elementary and secondary education is required to assign each district a level of support from 1 to5. le ve l one is the lowest level of support where districts have access to guidance tools and
desi contacts level ive is the highest level of the support where a district can potentially be put into state authority, meaning that Desi that the state board removes either the superintendent and or the board of directors Desi has discretion in determining the district's levels of support you can see under the classification criteria that there are two instances where districts have a mandated level of support based
on summmitative reading scores as you win a note there that in need of support is a designation based on the ACT aspire so district score with certain reading scores are mandated to be in level three or level4 based on students scoring in need
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:01:07
of support but that's based on the ACT aspire and not the atlas assessment Level5 does require
Speaker 20
2:01:13
the approval of the state board of Education so desi identifies districts as being in need of level5 and then
the state board must vote to actually classify those districts in level5 once the district is classified into level5, the commissioner of the department and the state board are allow have a number of actions available to them under statute to take corrective action in those districts including removing the superintendent and at the school board. ur r ent ly 5 districts in the state are in level5. All of those districts are also under state authority that does
being in level five does not automatically place a district into state authority so you can see that the Marvella Lane district was classified as being in level5 in November of 2022. It was not placed under state authority until July of 2023. Districts can also be placed in state authority for violations of the standards of accreditation or for fiscal distress which we'll discuss in the last section of this report if you'll notice Lee countunty
actually has two designations to dates that they were placed in state authority that first date in March 2019 was for violations of the standards for accreditation that second date is for level5. state board approval is also required for a district to exit level5 the school a school district that meets the exit criteria set by the board must be returned to full local control as soon as the state board determines that the school district has met the
exit criteria but in no case longer than5 years after the assumption of authority of the school distric a little bit of history on this since since the passage of thec accountability system in 2017, 3 other districts have been inlevel5 dollarway, Pinebluff and LittleRock. la bluff and LittleRock have both been removed from level5. the dollarway school district was annexed to the pine bluff school
district effective in July2021. and then finally
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:03:37
looking at some of the data that Adrian showed you broken down for the five school districts in level5
Speaker 20
2:03:45
currently you can see at the top of that chart the percentage of all school districts where students are meeting the percentage of students meeting scoring a level three or four on each of the subjects each of the assessment subjects
and then you can see the percentages for these districts and you can see that all of the districts and state authority have a smaller
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:04:11
percentage of students scoring a level three or level4 on atlas than the statewide average for all three of Maybeing the
Speaker 20
2:04:26
school and district rating systems as we discussed the adequacy statute requires that we review the
Accountability Act Arkansas Educationalupport and Accountability Act. the school and district ratings are actually not part of that act they're in a separate section of the Arkansas code However, since
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:04:43
they are an embedded part of this statewide reporting on school performance. we are reviewing them as part of this report we'll start with school writings as I mentioned
Speaker 20
2:04:55
earlier Desi has adopted a new system for calculating school letter grades you can see that formula on the
screen. these are the indicators used to calculate the letter grades for 2025. I want a note from 2017 to2023. Desie used the Sssa school index to calculate letter grades and under Act474 of2025, Desi did not publish letter grades Looking in s statistics on this school letter grades here you can see the number of schools
with each letter grade, the percentage of total schools with each letter grade and the number
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:05:40
of students enrolled in schools of each letter grade across the state and now we'll look at a little bit of Adrian's data that she previously shared but broken down
Speaker 20
2:05:55
by letter grade. Here you can see some of the subgroups you can see on this screen the percentage of special education students, English learners and
students eligible for free and reduced price lunch compared with the percentage of all students across the state and you can see that the
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:06:13
special education in English learnarer percentages for each letter grade are similar to the statewide percentage. the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch is lowest in a schools and continues to rise for through each letter grade until you get to d.
Speaker 20
2:06:35
Here we see letter grades broken down by race and ethnicity for the percentage of American Indian Hawaiian Pacific Islander or students of two or more races. those are all similar across all letter grades to
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:06:47
the statewide average for agent students the percentage is slightly higher in the A schools but otherwise similar to the statewide average for Hispanic Latino students the average percentage is similar to the statewide average except in schools where it is slightly lower
For African American students the average percentage is lowest in the A schools and gets higher with each letter grade and for white students the percentage is highest in A schools and
Speaker 20
2:07:22
get Looking now at Atlas scores broken down by your real quickpresentativeke surprisingly you are
Speaker 137
2:07:28
up for a question. thank you Mr Chair. I'm sorry I
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
2:07:37
got distracted on looking through this information as y'all were given it on the letter grade on I guess 116 on their performance systems or their school writing systems when it talks about the the achievements and the proficient can you so you have proficient and then advanced and that is that going to catch everybody the proficient with the proficient and advanced on this letter grade so that's including there are
Speaker 20
2:08:01
fourle4 levels and so that would include all state the proficient includes any students scoring
proficient or advanced that's so but
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
2:08:09
so we are still in the letter grade recognizing achievement not just growth it's both yes OK thank you
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
2:08:19
Representative Barnett you recognize thank you on slide 117 I see that there were 18 schools that were exempt from receiving letter grades and I wanted to know what under what circumstances our schools exempt from receiving a letter grade.
Speaker 20
2:08:40
I'm gonna have to I will have to get back with you on the full list my recollection I believe some of them is to do with the grade level served or the number of students served some very small schools are exempt due
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:08:57
to privacy considerations but I can get back to you with the full list of appreciate
Speaker 180
2:09:01
that thank you. Represent macgruder thank you Mr Chair piggyback off re representing
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
2:09:11
Barnett question do you know can we get the information on which schools were exempt? Absolutely Also on slide 113 I noticed that these schools that are in state took over our scoring a lot lower than the other schools and my real concern is we have the school that's been in state takeover for the longest period of time which is the Earl school district and it's going lower in all of the other schools. Do we have information to explain why they're doing worse that they're in state takeover.
Speaker 23
2:09:45
think that would be a question for the department about what what they're doing in that district and why why
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:09:51
that is or why that is or is not working in that school district thank you OK
Speaker 20
2:10:06
looking at atlas achievement levels broken down by letter grade and you can see the pattern here that the
achievement level the number of students scoring3 or4 on
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:10:17
the atlas is highest in the A schools and declines with each letter grade through the fs schools then looking at that same information for the dynamic learning maps and you can see here there's not as much of a pattern in
Speaker 20
2:10:32
the percentages are highest for LLA in math in the A schools but actually highest for science in the B schools and the F schools actually have higher percentages in all subjects than the D schools.
Now looking at Adrianne's access to educators information broken down by letter grade So the average percentage of teachers
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:10:58
with a master's degree is highest in the A schools and declines with each letter grade. conversely, that percentage of teachers with just a bachelor's degree is lowest in the A schools and then rises with each letter grade and
Speaker 20
2:11:11
the percentage of teachers with emergency or provisional credentials is lowest in the A
schools and then de rises with each letter
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:11:23
grade. and then last at a point on the school letter grades you can see the average years of teacher experience which is highest in the B schools. now we're gonna look at district level ratings.
Speaker 20
2:11:41
So the Arkansas Access Act of 2025 required the division to create a formula for district letter grades so these 225
district letter grades are the first you can see the number of districts the percentage of all districts and the total enrollment in those districts does he calculates these in the same manner as the school letter grades with each district treated as one K through 1el school. Looking at this geographically you can see that the F andD letter grades are more concentrated in the south
central and northeast parts of the state while the a letter grades are more concentrated Again this map is showing the traditional districts charter systems do not have an attendant sound. those charter systems are
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:12:35
most concentrated in the northwest and central areas of the state so most of the letter grades are correspondingly in those areas for charter now looking at district grades
by subgroups English language learners frame reduced price lunch eligible and special education as with the school letter grades the percentage of special education and English language learners are similar to the statewide percentage and for free and reduced price lunch eligible that percentage is again lowest in the A schools and rises through to the D schools and then falls when you look at F schools at F districts excuse me looking at district letter
Speaker 20
2:13:25
grades broken down by race and ethnicitygain this is similar to the breakdown for the school letter grades Looking here at Atlas performance by district letter grades the average percentage of students scoring a3 or4 and you can see again with like with the school that
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:13:44
grades that this is highest in the a districts and lowest in the a districts and then looking at the data for
Speaker 20
2:13:57
the dynamic learnaring maps the percentages are highest in the A schools lowest in
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:14:02
the F schools but actually higher in the sea schools than Looking at access to educators by district grades you can see again these patterns are similar to the school letter grades the highest percentage of teachers with a master's degree is in the A schools and the highest percentage of
teachers with emergency or provisional credentials is And then looking at the average years of teacher experience by district grade almost the same in A and B schools and
Speaker 20
2:14:41
then declines with each subsequent letter right Stop for questions there before
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:14:47
our last section Representative garner you recognized thank you Mr Chair. I just have
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:14:58
a quick question on 123 the new rating system for the schools do you have a do you have a comparison? I know it's a new test but I would like to know how many schools what percentage were each one of these grades on the prior test on the prior assessment that you would think that would be helpful even though it's a different assessment I'd like to know why the difference and how the difference that'd be great thank you Representative Duke's seat
Chair
Unverified
2:15:28
matepresentative painter you're recognized right just since we're
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
2:15:32
requesting information, can I get a request of the information for the list of the schools and the districts and their letter grade I love reading a map but in when I look at it some of that color blends in together and so if we can do that I greatly appreciate it
Speaker 20
2:15:53
right you re finish. OK. our last section additional accountability for public schools looking at fiscal distress and facilities distress
as Liam mentioned at the beginning of this presentation this both of these programs are required to be reviewed under the adequacy statute we'll start with fiscal distress fiscal distress is the program intended to help students that are districts that are struggling the division of elementary and secondaryducation identifies those districts and then as with level ive the state board actually has to vote to classify those districts in fiscal
distress. Once the district is classified then
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:16:34
the commissioner and the state board have authority to take corrective actions including removing the superintendent or removing the s this district school board currently no districts are in fiscal distress looking at early
Speaker 20
2:16:49
intervention, early intervention is part of the fiscal distress statute. This is intended to help districts avoid fiscal distress does he identifies districts that are in early intervention
oncece does he makes that designation the district cannot incur written incur additional debt without the written approval of the division and that district must comply with all requirements established by the state board in rules districts are able to move in and out of
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:17:21
early intervention at any time and currently there are4 districts in in in early intervention
Speaker 20
2:17:33
Another part of the fiscal distress statute is monitoring Desi is required to provide monitoring for three years after a district is removed from fiscal distress. So currently Earl Pinebluff and Lee County are all in this
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:17:48
monitoring. they are all due to be released from monitoring later this year or in 2027.
Speaker 20
2:17:57
and finally facilities distress the purpose of facilities distress is to ensure adequate facilities and ensure that
districts and schools are complying with facilities rules this is either a school or a district classification only one district has ever been placed in facilities distressed it was removed back in 2009. No schools have ever been placed in facilities distress facilities distress is run through the division of public school academic facilities and transportation that division maintains a facilities distres indicator tracker and you can see here the numbers from that
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:18:36
tracker for 2024 and2025, the number of districts, the number of violations and the number remediated in the same school year remediated meaning resolved in both years several of those violations related to failure to notify the division as required prior to performing construction or maintenance or having secured exterior doors and with that we are done with
Speaker 20
2:19:03
our presentation and we'll take any additional questions.
Members we have additional questions Representative innnett you're recognized thank
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:19:17
you Mr Chair. thank you for the presentation it was very insightful. I do have a question about we talk about special needs in this report and forgive me if I'm not framing this correctly and I'm just trying to think of a a coherent question to ask
regarding special ed is there any way to to take this information and just put it all like special ed information like take it out of this information to so I could I don't know, I'm sorry. I
Speaker 86
2:19:54
think they understand the question we certainly could do pull the data and showed strictly special education I'll also add they're not included here because they're not related to any of
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:20:04
the requirements of Essa or the State Accountability Act
but there are some federal accountability measures for special education that can also provide that may get to that
Speaker 115
2:20:14
question as well thank you so much Reresentment
Speaker 168
2:20:18
if you want to get maybe some more specific questions to me I'll send them out to staff so we can disseminate I think it's good good information you Additional questions all right committee
thank you so much for your time ladies thank you all for your work and your information. it's very helpful as always committee real quick everybodydy has binders OK? The binders will
remain here. they'll be in the hallway between mac A and B my recommendation request of the committee would be that don't let this be something you pick up once a month when you take a look and come in for the meetings, take some time to study through the the presentations these folks have worked extremely hard to give us this information and I don't want this to be something we just look at once a month and then forget about because I think that helps us get to a better place at the end of the adequacy study so I'd encourage you to do that also encourage you don't
take it home because then you'll leave it there and you'll wonder where it is and we'll have to print off more stuff. Representative Mcgruder you
Speaker 234
2:21:18
got a question? sir you're saying we can take these binders with us. No sir let's leave the binders here so they stay
here because they they have a tendency to just walk away and never come back but I would encourage you when you are here please take some time to to filter through it so we continue to be educated on this. thank you sir. I'm
Speaker 168
2:21:34
not going to tell you what you have to do with your binder I mean you're big boy so you beat me up so
uhpresentativebayberry you're recognized Yes, so just another question along these
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:21:45
lines bookkeeping I guess we could say so these that have been handed to us. they have the nice holes are they supposed to be put into this binder or do we just take these home and this is additional stuff just help help me know what I'm supposed to do. Staff will place those into the binder I believe so lead them on our desk and you will put them into the binder where they
go because that was going to be my next
Speaker 236
2:22:14
question don't know what a tab category it goes under. Theres there's a
Speaker 238
2:22:17
tab in the binder staff will take care of putting all that in there so it'll
be ready for us to review anytime you want to. OK thank you and it's also all available online of course. Additional questions clarifications we're all good awesome. thank you everyone with that jointation is adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. 2026 Adequacy Study: Accountability and Achievement [Exhibits B1-B2]
C. Other Business
D. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Representative Keith Brooks Chair
Unverified
Speaker 20
Speaker 22
Speaker 26
Speaker 32
Speaker 34
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Speaker 53
Speaker 82
Speaker 86
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 92
Speaker 94
Speaker 97
Speaker 98
Speaker 55
Speaker 106
Speaker 96
Speaker 110
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 118
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 134
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 146
Speaker 71
Speaker 162
Speaker 163
Speaker 165
Speaker 168
Speaker 169
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 131
Speaker 151
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 167
Speaker 220
Speaker 137
Speaker 180
Speaker 23
Speaker 115
Speaker 234
Speaker 236
Speaker 238