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Some schools move toward NCLB compliance; report shows rising enrollment Saturday, Oct 20, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Of the 325 Arkansas schools that have been identified as not in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 77 have made an important step toward compliance, the state Department of Education announced Friday. The 77 schools have achieved adequate yearly progress for the first year, according to state Education Commissioner Ken James. Schools are removed from the "school improvement" list after achieving adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years. Sixty-nine of those schools were able to achieve adequate yearly progress because of Arkansas' growth model, which credits schools for adequately raising the performance level of students even if they fall short of scoring "proficient" on the Arkansas Benchmark Exams. Arkansas is one of seven states that have received permission from the federal government to use a growth model in calculating schools' yearly progress. "We were thrilled to have our growth model approved last year because we know it gets to the heart of what No Child Left Behind is about," James said in a news release. "The model assesses the year-to-year growth of each child and determines which ones are making enough progress to achieve proficiency by eighth grade even though they haven't yet reached that performance level." Arkansas schools have been on the school improvement list anywhere from one year to seven years. A year ago, Arkansas had 304 schools on the list. Also Friday, the state Department of Education released enrollment figures as of Oct. 1 showing the state has 466,391 public school students, an increase of 778 students from a year ago. The state's largest district by enrollment remained Little Rock with 25,738 students, followed by Pulaski County Special (17,395), Springdale (16,792), Fort Smith (13,740), Rogers (13,490) and Bentonville (11,959). The report also showed: -The Cabot district supplanted North Little Rock as the seventh-largest district, gaining 314 students for a total of 9,226. The North Little Rock School District dropped from seventh to ninth in enrollment, losing 360 students for a total of 8,974. The Conway district moved from ninth to seventh, gaining 228 students for a total of 9,002. -Three of the 10 largest districts lost enrollment from a year ago. In addition to North Little Rock, the Pulaski County district lost 361 students and the Fayetteville district lost 90 but remained the state's 10th largest with enrollment of 8,406. The Bentonville district gained the most students by far, adding 841. -Three districts had enrollment levels that were below 350 on Oct. 1 but were above 350 a year ago: Weiner with 340, Delight with 335 and Turrell with 317. Act 60 of 2003 mandates consolidation of any school district with average enrollment that falls below 350 for two consecutive years. ------- On the Net: http://ArkansasEd.org. |
