Two groups release achievement guide

Two organizations — Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and the Arkansas Campaign for Grade-Level Reading — have produced an eight-page guide to help parents understand the state’s new system of tracking student and school achievement.

The state accountability plan is required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, of 2015.

“Arkansas’s ESSA plan is a welcome shift from the onesize-fits-all accountability model of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. But the methodology behind school report cards is still a mystery to most parents. We hope this guide will help parents understand the big picture and know how to find more information,” said Ginny Blankenship, Arkansas Advocates education policy director.

Topics in the new guide include a list of state-required tests for students, the formula for calculating school letter grades and the importance of growth scores, as well as information on how to find the school and district scores online.

Arkansas Advocates used the release of the guide to call for the state to amend its Every Student Succeeds Act plan to give even greater weight to growth or achievement gains as reflected in year-to-year reporting of test results.

The guide is available on the Arkansas Advocates’ website: aradvocates.org.