Graduate rate falls for teens in state

But high schools’ figure tops U.S.’

Graphs showing information about High school graduation rates
Graphs showing information about High school graduation rates

The high school graduation rate in Arkansas fell by 2 percentage points from 2014 to 2015 but still sits above a record-high national rate.

Arkansas is near the middle with a rate of 84.9 percent -- or 30,371 of 35,783 students -- graduating in four years with a high school diploma. Iowa had the highest high school graduation rate at 90.8 percent, while New Mexico and Washington, D.C., had the lowest rates at 68.6 and 68.5 percent, respectively.

Nationwide, the rate reached 83.2 percent in 2015, continuing a trend inching upward since the 2010-11 school year and one that shows improvement across all racial and ethnic groups, according to federal data released Monday.

President Barack Obama and several education groups welcomed the steady progress but said there was still much more to be done.

More Hispanic and black students are graduating high school than ever before, Obama said during a visit to Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, a magnet school in the District of Columbia. But those groups are still graduating at lesser rates than other subgroups, the data show.

"Our public schools had been the envy of the world but the world caught up, and we started getting outpaced when it came to math and science education. And African American and Latino students, in part because of the legacy of discrimination too often lagged behind our white classmates, something called the achievement gap that by one estimate costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year," Obama said in a live video.

"And we were behind other developed countries when it came to the number of young people who are getting a higher education, so I said, when I first came into office, [that] by 2020, I want us to be No. 1 again. I want us to be No. 1 across the board."

Obama credited several of his administration's efforts, including high-quality early-education programs and an increase in access to high-speed Internet in classrooms. He touted a grant program called Race to the Top, which funneled funds to the nation's lowest-performing schools to help upgrade curriculum and improve teacher training.

In Arkansas, high school graduation rates have zigzagged to the top in 2014 with 86.9 percent -- or 29,925 of 34,422 students -- graduating in four years with a high school diploma, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Education.

Mireya Reith, the chairman of the Arkansas Board of Education and a Fayetteville resident, said the state's graduation rate was a testament to the importance that officials have put on education.

"I will say that having been a part of the state [Education] Board for the last five years and between two different governors and ... different commissioners ... there's a shared focus on the priority of education that you get on political leadership at all levels," she said.

"We made a commitment to make sure consistently underperforming schools ... no longer fell through the cracks and that we were dedicating resources to the department to turn around schools and districts. We have seen more resources than ever dedicated to this."

The Education Board can label schools or school districts as academically distressed for chronically low student test scores.

Bentonville Public Schools Superintendent Debbie Jones said she was not surprised with Arkansas' standing.

"We've been working hard; we should have that growth," said Jones, a former assistant commissioner for learning services at the state Education Department. "But we still have room to grow. We can't lower our standards, and we can't lower expectations."

The state had received a $5 million grant, which it used to form good "response-to-intervention" systems, or seeing which students are not achieving, learning why they are not succeeding and then providing the right plans to help them succeed, she said. The state has also promoted rigorous standards, tried to look at personal growth and focused less on teaching to the test and more on actual instruction, she said.

Arkansas' high school graduation rates for black and Hispanic students also were above the national average. Rates for Hispanic students increased from 2011 to 2014 but plateaued at 84.5 percent -- or 2,981 of 3,527 students -- in 2015. Rates for black students have also staggered upward with a high of 81 percent -- or 6,036 of 7,448 students -- in 2014, before falling to 77.5 percent -- or 6,138 of 7,916 students -- in 2015.

Reith, the Education Board chairman, said there is a correlation between schools in academic distress and those with minority-group students as the majority of the school population. The Education Board requires schools or school districts in academic distress to work with a school intervention specialist from the department, and officials from the school or school district must report to the board every so often.

"It's hard for kids to even think about graduating when they are two or three years behind in reading and math," she said. "Without developmental tools, we're putting a lot of high stakes on testing ... and we continue to need to focus on this. We have to be using remediation interventions. Teaching is going to be tremendously important. Unfortunately right now, we're dealing with a teacher shortage in areas that are majority minority. We need to revisit the teaching profession in a way that makes teaching enjoyable again. It is going to take a holistic approach."

She added that racial and ethnic groups aren't the only places where achievement gaps occur in education -- there's also rural versus urban areas and inequities in experience, such as the possibility of student externships or internships or offering them college-level coursework.

Empowering parents and the community to know about opportunities for students can help, she said. As an example, the Springdale and Rogers districts offer educational opportunities for families, taking the "whole family, whole community approach."

Jones and Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special School District, both said the biggest barrier to graduating from high school is poverty.

"Family poverty is one of the biggest issues in performance," Guess said. "That means attendance, graduation rates, accountability issues ... discipline issues. I would say it certainly is relevant to graduation rates."

At the Pulaski County Special district, administrators have tried to deal with students' financial disparities in part by its 1-to-1 technology initiative. The drive puts iPads into the hands of kindergartners through second-graders and Chromebooks for third-graders through high school seniors.

The district has for the past three years partnered with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Philander Smith College in summer high school-to-college bridge programs and tutoring sessions. The programs -- intended to close the achievement gap -- sent high school students to the campuses throughout the year for ACT exam preparation, to experience campus life and to get help in reading, writing and math.

Pulaski County, like many other districts in the state, is also working to beef up its offerings of college-level coursework and credit recovery programs to help get students back on track.

As many other school districts are doing, Bentonville is focusing on who isn't graduating, Jones said.

"In last year's graduation rates, we had a bigger gap than we would expect between poverty and non-poverty students," she said. "We don't start experiencing disengagement at the high school level. It starts much lower than that."

The Bentonville district started an after-school program -- called ROAR, which stands for relationships, opportunities, adventures and readiness -- to give students a snack or meal, time for homework or extra help from teachers and an activity, such as a game or field trip. The idea is to re-engage students with the school.

The district has recently finished a study reviewing all of its activities and the cost of engaging students. The study found that some activities had high costs, but students could work through the costs in fundraising, she said. It also found that a number of clubs and activities were free to students.

It has also embraced the "response to intervention" system, trying to personalize learning for each student, she said.

Reith -- who is the founding executive director of Arkansas United Community Coalition, a nonprofit that runs seven immigrant resource centers around the state -- said the response to intervention systems and other best practices can be shared in "professional learning communities."

She said she saw promise in the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, a school accountability system that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. The new law aims to give states and school districts more authority in deciding how to hold schools responsible for student learning, and Arkansas is working to develop its accountability plan.

"While we're starting in the right direction, through ESSA ... we'll have a chance to look in the data in nuanced ways to make sure that all students are served," she said. "I'm excited about the opportunity of ESSA because we have a real chance to do things differently in a way that can really address the needs of consistently low-performing subgroups."

A Section on 10/18/2016

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