We’re in a Race? Like It or Not, Yes. The State of Education in Arkansas
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In 2023–whether you want to admit it or not–race still matters. Unlike gender, religion, socioeconomic status, or any other demographic identifier, the only one that can be truly "seen" (or easily assumed) is your race. It impacts what people say in conversations, how they view situations, where people choose to send their students for school, and even where they choose to worship on Sunday mornings. Dr. Cornel West’s 1993 book, Race Matters, was a pivotal text that called for a moral and spiritual reawakening and noted the relevance and pervasiveness of race. During a recent series of trips to and around the state of Arkansas, the evidence of Dr. West's powerful assertions were laid out before me in stark relief.
At 2Revolutions, we've been fortunate to partner with Forward Arkansas, a statewide education intermediary aimed at curtailing the impacts of–and ultimately closing–the achievement gap. Specific to our collaboration, Forward released their first State of Education report in 2015 and highlighted the areas of growth and priority to improve the state of public education. To say a lot has changed since then would be a grave understatement. Since that report’s publication, we have seen the election of Donald Trump and the exposure of nefarious desires, we have experienced a global pandemic that has forever changed humanity in ways that we’re still uncovering, and we have witnessed multiple years of national racial unrest that have led to changes in what and how we teach students.
With a goal of transforming the K12 student experience and supporting Arkansas' move to more learner-centered and equitable classrooms and systems for all students, Forward Arkansas formulated a statewide engagement process to assess progress that has been made, establish a shared understanding of where the state is currently, and lay out priorities to accelerate progress toward a bright educational future. The intention was to hear directly from community members, educators and families about their hopes, fears, and needs for their most prized possession: their children (and with their children, the future). I was part of a 2Revolutions team that helped support the statewide engagement process.
Central to the process was the sharing of summative statewide student performance data. As a Forward/2Rev team, we collectively decided what data was most important to highlight. In the end, we selected data from a wide range of sources, including the Arkansas Department of Education, Arkansas Department of Education Data Center, National Center for Education Statistics, Arkansas Division of Higher Education, National Student Clearinghouse, the National Education Association, Corpus Christi Caller Times, Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Columbia Missourian, US Census Bureau, Active Minds Student Mental Health Survey, New York Times, National Center for Homeless Education, FBI; and EY-Parthenon analysis. At the conclusion of our analysis, we landed on 10 data points to share with community members:
African Americans and Students With Disabilities still perform lower on the ACT Aspire in Literacy and Math (Free and Reduced Lunch & English Language Learners outpacing both)
88% of Arkansans graduated in 2019, but just 27% of these graduates were proficient or greater on their 8th grade reading assessment
A little over half (55%) of High School grads in the state enroll in a postsecondary institution and even fewer matriculate to graduation
Teacher retention and student enrollment both have declined over the last 6 years
About 1% of AR students are enrolled in RISE award-winning schools for incorporating the science of reading into student instruction, and building a culture of literacy)
English Language Learners have made meaningful progress in mathematics
Schools with Career and Technical Education programs have seen improvements in graduation rates
More pathways to teaching have been created (incentives and flexibility) have been created in the last 6 years
Each of our in-person focus groups opened with a conversation starter and quickly shifted to focus on data. After inviting community members to review the data, we asked them to note what was surprising, which data point was most compelling, and in which data points their local context differed in comparison to the rest of the state. Our questions in the sessions focused on each of the following three categories:
Student Learning Experience
Educator Workforce and Capacity
Equitable Policies and Systems
Not surprisingly, the needs and goals of each community we listened to varied depending on the location. Some areas of the state paid teachers well and had to turn away candidates, while others were struggling to staff schools and maintain local ownership. Ranging across the state– from the more affluent northwest region and central Arkansas, to the economically depressed Delta, southwest and southeast–we visited more than 40 different cities and towns, listening to nearly 1,000 Arkanasans in their own communities.
With regard to the student learning experience, all parents, educators and community members want their children to be independent, positive contributors to their local communities and have autonomy in who they will become. To manifest this, in communities like Texarkana on the border with Texas, many community members choose to send their children to schools outside of Arkansas since the schools in Texas are perceived as "better" and the pay for teachers is higher. Relatably and unfortunately, one Black mother in the south-central city of Camden was heartbroken due to the reality that the school system had failed to equip her two oldest daughters (a high school junior and senior) with strong reading or critical thinking skills. Her youngest son is in the 3rd grade and is finally getting special education intervention services for which she has spent more than four years advocating. She noted that since it had taken so long for him to receive the services he needs and deserves, she can already see the declining path he is on as he continues to be educated in a system not preparing him for long-term life success.
When speaking with community members about educator workforce and capacity, the biggest “elephant in the room” was teacher pay and teachers’ inability to have control over what matters in the face of the state’s identified priorities. In Fort Smith, it was noted by a White female that "teachers always start out with good intentions, but intentions run out when money isn't there." This is a chilling observation on how many people may be called to teach, but the calling may get quieter when the compensation does not match the demands of the profession. In Dermott, a local Black school administrator noted that the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) count was looming, and she'd just had a male teacher quit the prior day. Her exact words were, "How am I going to find a teacher to replace him? And if I don't replace him by the FTE count date, I'll lose even more money at our school.” In spite of the challenges associated with teaching and working in schools, structures and pedagogies are often dueling detriments when it comes to providing more autonomy and leadership within the teacher workforce.
A middle-aged Black woman from Marianna noted, "All year, we are never treated equally or equitably. The only time we're seen as equals in the state is when it comes to mandated state testing." The assumption and reality in this narrative is that in spite of the (lack of) resources given all year, all communities are held to the same standards of success as assessed by state measurements.
In considering equitable policies and systems, most focus community participants were concerned about the potential impacts of the upcoming elections on their children's access to high quality teachers and resources. Based on a broad set of conversations, unfortunately, that isn't the reality for many. A middle-aged Black woman from Marianna noted, "All year, we are never treated equally or equitably. The only time we're seen as equals in the state is when it comes to mandated state testing." The assumption and reality in this narrative is that in spite of the (lack of) resources given all year, all communities are held to the same standards of success as assessed by state measurements.
As an engagement team, we wondered whether the issue of Critical Race Theory and academic freedom/curricula used in schools would surface as we had seen happen in other parts of the country. Surprisingly, during the summer and fall that we spent on the ground listening to communities in Arkansas, it rarely did come up. Since that time, much has shifted within the state. With the recent elections, a new state government has come into office. Specifically, an executive order prohibiting indoctrination and critical race theory in schools has been passed and looks to be implemented swiftly. The new administration is saying that race doesn’t matter. Much of the data that surfaced in the State of Education report point to the fact that race is an important factor to be considered. We heard it through our conversations and saw it in the data over and over again.
As a 6'4”, 225lb Black male from northeast Louisiana, race matters to me, a lot. Tell me race doesn't matter when it's dark and I'm driving from Searcy after sundown and I get pulled over by two White cops. Thankfully this didn't happen to me. But it did happen to two of my White female colleagues. They were given a warning and sent on their way. When I talked with them about what had occurred, they laughed until I asked them to shift their perspective. Their reflection was that of Atticus Finch in that "you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." I'm not asserting that my Blackness is something to be externally feared or internally scared to exist within. I am asserting that for all students, and even those in Arkansas: race matters.Yes, Arkansas is a state with many rural and low Socioeconomic Status (SES) White people, but when you couple poverty with race, the impacts, effects, and outcomes are always significantly worse. Of poverty and race, one may not have more influence than the other, but the fact remains that race matters. When the broken windows theory is coupled with racial history in America, the breaks and cracks are always bigger.
The lives and futures of Arkansas’ students will be impacted by shifts made to pedagogy and school structure. Some of these shifts will involve student learning experiences, some will involve educator workforce and capacity, while others will affect equitable policies and systems. Altogether, these three areas of focus will allow state leaders, policy makers, community leaders, schools, families, and ultimately, children, to decide who and what they will become. Our formal State of Education in-person focus group sessions have closed, surveys have been analyzed, and priorities have been set. The work of agitating and building, has not. It is continuing and starting…
Everything in life is a competition, a race,whether it is to be the top student, the top performer, the top scholarship receiver, the employee of the month, or the one who gets the bonus. Unfortunately, race plays a major part in all of those competitions, and for many, race is a hurdle that must constantly be navigated. One day, the state of education will turn things around and race will no longer determine the winners or losers of any form of “racing” in education.
