Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large. The latest Arkansas School Performance Report card is ready for inspection. The information on Arkansas schools is designed to allow families and the general public to see how schools are performing and explore detailed information about schools and school districts.
We invited Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas, to come to the Carver Center for Public Radio last Friday to help us understand more about these school grades and what was different about the grades this year. Arkansas is continuing to give A through F letter grades to schools. The idea is that it's an easy metric for parents to understand.
McKenzie: It's only a good metric if it's measuring what matters to you, right? Like if a hotel is A-rated because it has a great gym, that's not helpful to me because I'm not going to go to the gym. So it's about what they're being graded on.
So essentially, for middle and elementary schools, it's nine items. The percent of kids passing this state-level, the grade-level tests in English language arts, math and science. The percentage of kids that are meeting or exceeding the growth that we would expect from them in ELA, math and science. And then for those kids that started the year the farthest behind their peers, what percentage of them made expected growth or more?
So two-thirds of the calculations for middle and elementary schools are about how much kids are growing in school, how much they're learning. And while we still want kids to read and have numeracy, and that's the goal, they aren't going to get there magically. We have to grow them along the way. And for kids that are already on grade level, they also still need to continue growing. Just being on grade level is not enough. So it really does represent what I feel is important for schools to be doing, which is providing high-quality instruction and making sure students learn.
Kellams: So with this new calculation, any overarching results that we can take away?
McKenzie: Yeah. Last year was the first year, and this year we have more A's and fewer D and F schools. So that's good. That shows that in general, schools are moving upward. And those that aren't are going to get a lot of support from the state department to sort of figure out what's going on there.
So it's not like under the old A through F system, where if you served a high-poverty school, your achievement was probably not going to be as high because those kids might have come in behind being ready to learn. And now we do see schools that used to be F schools that are getting an A, so.
Kellams: Because they are making up ground.
McKenzie: Because they're making tremendous learning gains during the year, which indicates good instruction is happening.
Kellams: Yes. Okay.
McKenzie: And not just good instruction, right? Like, I agree that you have to have good relationships with families. You have to have good classroom management, you have to have good teaching pedagogy, you have to have a good school culture, so you don't have a lot of chronic absenteeism. All those things have to happen, and you have to have rigorous content instruction.
So when I see a school like Bobby Barrett Elementary from Mount Ida, that's a K-6, that went from an F last year to an A this year, 78% of their students are economically disadvantaged, and they just blew it out of the water. It's amazing. And it's exciting for those kids and for that community.
Kellams: So this elementary school in Mount Ida, which is in a rural part of Arkansas, isolated part of Arkansas, beautiful part of Arkansas, but isolated. For those of us who are still thinking about how this works, does that mean there was added emphasis for these students to get them, I mean, was something different happening as opposed to two years ago?
McKenzie: Absolutely.
Kellams: When the calculus was different.
McKenzie: Absolutely. So two years ago, it would have been very difficult for them to get an A, B, no matter how much they grew the kids, because they weren't going to get to them, get to the grade-level proficiency, especially in elementary schools. You take the first test in third grade, and then, like, you aren't going to get them on grade level by sixth grade, probably, and you're not going to get them all on grade level.
So I haven't talked to Mount Ida, but I imagine that they really focused on each student and on the standards and what they needed to move them forward. High-impact tutoring is a program that has been shown to be very effective. Maybe a lot of their parents elected into the optional tutoring grants. Maybe they had leadership turnover, but it was the same kids in this community, right? It's not like a bunch of new kids moved into Mount Ida. They just changed the way their school was working, and they got rewarded for it.
They also got one of the financial rewards from the state for being a Gem School for having such high growth. So they get about $8,500 to their school that they can spend in whatever way they think is most important.
Kellams: Is it harder, then, for a school to get that A again next year?
McKenzie: No, it shouldn't be. So this is one of the things about growth that I think there's two main misconceptions. The first one is that low-achieving kids are going to grow more. They're more likely to meet their growth targets. And that's not true, because kids are compared with other low-achieving kids. And we say, "Okay, if you're achieving at this level, we're going to expect you to grow this much." Not even expect. But we see in the data that kids like you grew this much. Did you grow more or less?
And it's for high kids, it's the same way. Like, if you're already well above grade level, there's all sorts of kids around the state that are well above grade level, and your improvement is being compared to them. So it's not such a judgment on the kid as it is on the system in which the kid is learning, in which why it's so great for looking at school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness.
Kellams: So we saw schools in some dramatic instances go from F to A. Did some schools slide back?
McKenzie: Yes. There are some that slid back, especially going between an A and a B. Like, if you're right on that cut point, maybe you had a science teacher who was out on maternity leave this year and you had a sub, and so the science scores weren't as good, or maybe anything, all kinds of things.
Kellams: But we didn't see a dramatic end to the volcano.
McKenzie: Dramatic changes. No. Locally, though, if we look at Greenland High School, again, not as well known as some of the Fayetteville or Bentonville schools, three years ago they had a C, last year they went to a D, and this year they went to a B. So, and those kids are learning so much more, and they're getting more proficient. That's the thing. As you learn more, you get more proficient at the subject areas. So they were the story that I really liked from Northwest Arkansas. And it's again the same kids, the same teachers, just a different approach to making sure kids are learning.
Kellams: I think a lot of us like to think of a school year as a new school year, and you're starting over. But what it sounds like here is that this is a continuum, that when you're a first grade, not new kids, right? First grade to second grade to third grade, if it's going well, it should continue to improve all the way through 12.
McKenzie: Absolutely. That's absolutely right. And that sort of alignment of the systems is what we're really seeing more now because, with the third-grade promotion requirement, it really created a sense of urgency among K, one, two teachers and parents about, like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't want my kid to be retained." Very small percentage of third graders actually were allowed to do third grade again. But there's more focus on their early reading than there was before.
I think we also need to be focusing on math because our state isn't doing very well in math. But the improvement that we saw this year is amazing. And some of you might know about the Mississippi Miracle, where Mississippi saw this incredible rise in test scores. And we're thinking of it now not as the Mississippi Miracle, but the Mississippi Marathon, because it took many years of sustained effort to get that kind of outcome for kids. So we're just at the very beginning of the marathon right now and have a lot more work to do.
Kellams: The 20-year overnight sensation.
McKenzie: Yes, exactly.
Kellams: I hope someone, I'm sure someone will talk to the Greenland High School teachers, the elementary school teachers in Mount Ida. How do they feel about that? I mean, enough resources? Did they, how is it working for them?
McKenzie: Right. And resources is a good thing to raise, because remember, as a part of the LEARNS Act, we raise teacher salaries. And I'm sure in Mount Ida, and probably in Greenland, too, they were $36,000 a year for starting teachers, and they got a raise to $50,000.
So, and it's not just about the money. It's about how we're using our resources. And if we're using programs like high-impact tutoring that have shown to be effective, or if we're just buying another textbook off the shelf that Texas uses and hoping it's going to work. So I think we're being more strategic about the way we're using our resources, and the better accountability system, so it's about how well you do, not how rich your students are, is really driving that change.
Kellams: If you're a Gem School, you get bragging rights. Anything else?
McKenzie: You get bragging rights, and you get, some schools get monetary rewards. So like, yeah, so like Greenland High School. It wasn't as high an achievement, but because its growth was so high, they get $30,000. You get $100 per kid for being in the top 10, the top 5% in achievement. And then if you're in the top 5% for growth, you get another $100 per kid. So it can be a substantial amount of money.
Kellams: And that money can be used for?
McKenzie: Pretty much however the school wants to.
And obviously, in the top 5% for achievement, that's going to go to schools that have kids more on grade level. So Bentonville always gets a nice share of that, but they are looking at those that have both high achievement and high growth, like Haas Hall. Like, if you're a double winner, you get double money.
Kellams: Haas Hall has high growth? I thought they were just good.
McKenzie: No, they have phenomenal growth. It's amazing. And that's a great example of, "Well, these kids are so high achieving. How can they grow?" Well, they can grow if you present them with opportunities to grow.
Kellams: All right. So we have the grades recently released. What's next?
McKenzie: Teacher merit pay won't be announced until the spring, I believe. So for now, for me, it is on Wednesday the 23rd at 3:30. OEP is going to have a town hall virtually about letter grades and parent. The Office for Education Policy.
Kellams: Yes.
McKenzie: oep.uark.edu.
Kellams: Yes.
McKenzie: And you can be a parent, you can be a kid, you can be a teacher, you can be a superintendent, you can be a policymaker and, or just a community member. If you have questions about letter grades, we want to help you understand what it means.
And then in November, on the 11th, we'll be in Little Rock hosting a conference where we'll be presenting lots of our OEP research about four-day school weeks, about chronic absenteeism, about phone-free, about teacher turnover and morale and well-being, about EFA funds, about lots of different kinds of things. And it's free for people to attend if you'd like to register.
Kellams: All right. One last question. Let's say a school that your child goes to got a B.
McKenzie: B's aren't bad.
Kellams: No, B's are good. When I brought a B home once in geometry, my dad said, "Well, all right then." So what do you do? I mean, we all want to be the best and everything, but you have a school that was a B last time, B this time. What do we take from that?
McKenzie: Yeah. That's good. I really would recommend moving beyond the overall letter grade. And if you go to My School Info, you just type that in, and it'll take you to a website where you can look up your school, and it shows you the letter grade. And then it shows you, like, how your kids did, on the kids in that school, on meeting the grade-level standards in ELA, math and science.
But then scroll down a little bit, and it shows you growth and growth for those students who were farthest behind. And it's color-coded, right? So if it's dark green, your school did really well. If it's dark red, that's an area of concern. So you can click on it and see more data by grade level and all that stuff.
But I would really move past just that it's a B and dig into that growth and see where there might be areas where you could help your kid's school. If they're doing poorly in math and maybe you have an afternoon that you could go and help some kids who are behind learn in math, that, see if that would be helpful, or what could you do to help?
Kellams: And where can you find all of this?
McKenzie: It's at myschoolinfo.arkansas.gov. My School Info, all one word.
Kellams: All right. Thank you so much.
McKenzie: All right. Thank you so much, Kyle.
Kellams: Sarah McKenzie is executive director of the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. You can find out more about the school grades at myschoolinfo.arkansas.gov. The Office for Education Policy's virtual town hall meeting about the school grades is tomorrow afternoon from 3:30 until 4:30. It's open to the public. It is free to attend. You can learn more about tomorrow's virtual town hall meeting at the Facebook page for the Office for Education Policy.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
