Legislative topic today is education. Bottom line: progress slight over last two decades. – Arkansas Times

Legislative topic today is education. Bottom line: progress slight over last two decades. - Arkansas Times

On

The Arkansas House and Senate Education Committees are hearing this morning from the Bureau of Legislative Research on a study of the states effort in education, including what progress has been made since the landmark Lake View ruling in 2002 that the state was failing the constitutional requirement of equal and adequate education.

A mountain of information was prepared for todays meeting, to wit:

The state has made some progress in financial support for schools since Lakeview (though teacher pay has essentially flat-lined against national growth in recent years.) But the rubber meets the road on student performance. You can find an extensive look at measurements in the starting slate presentation.

Spoiler alert, the concluding slides:

The report comments:

The first decade or so after the Lake View reforms were instituted, many of the indicators Kilgore cited saw improvement. Progress on most, however, has stalled or, in some cases, declined since around 2013. When current data is compared with other states, Arkansas often ranks among the lower performing states.

Arkansas spending has improved since Lake View but hasnt kept pace with national changes. A couple of illustrations.

Original post:

Legislative topic today is education. Bottom line: progress slight over last two decades. - Arkansas Times