Education notebook

ACT ‘superscores’ offered for youths

“Superscores” are now available from ACT, the nonprofit company that develops and administers the ACT college entrance exam that is widely used by Arkansas high school students.

The organization announced that it will provide an automatically calculated ACT superscore to students who have taken the entrance exam more than once since September 2016. The superscore will be the average of the four best subject area scores pulled from all of a student’s completed tests.

The ACT exam covers English, math, reading and science.

“Extensive research suggests that — among students who take the ACT more than once — superscoring is the best scoring method for predicting how students will perform in their college courses,” the company said in announcing the scoring plan.

The service is projected to be especially beneficial to students from traditionally underserved populations, the company said.

More information is available at: https://bit. ly/3gbmBZp.

List IDs subjects short of teachers

The Arkansas Board of Education last week identified — as it does annually — the subject areas in which there are critical shortages of teachers.

Those teacher shortage areas for the 2021-22 school year are: kindergarten-through-12th-grade art, seventh-through-12thgrade chemistry, kindergarten-12th-grade French, kindergarten-12th-grade library/media specialists, seventh-through-12th-grade math, seventh-through-12thgrade physics, and kindergarten-through-12th-grade special education.

State law makes available financial incentives for some teachers in subjects in which there are shortages of educators. Those incentives can include loan repayment grants, loan forgiveness and test fee reimbursements.

The shortage calculations take into account the number of teachers in a subject area, the number preparing for a state license, the potential number of new hires, the number of long-term substitutes, the number of teachers teaching out of their licensure area and the number of educators who retired in the previous year or who are expected to retire in the near future.

More information is available at: https://bit.ly/3t1ZvYy https://bit.ly/3fYP4Bp https://bit.ly/39Ztxom

Artistry in the Rock virtual this year

The Little Rock School District’s 10th annual Artistry In the Rock event that showcases student work in the visual and performing arts is virtual this year.

The artists and performers are in grades prekindergarten-through-12th grades and are from schools throughout the capital city district.

The link to the performances is at: https://bit. ly/3s6O0O4.