Education notebook

— PB student claims perfect ACT score

Lauren Clai Elizabeth Morehead, a 15-year-old junior at Ridgway Christian School in Pine Bluff, recently earned a top composite score of 36 on the ACT college entrance exam, officials at ACT Inc. in Iowa confirmed.

Nationally, fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of ACT test-takers earn the top score annually. The national average composite score is 21 on the 1 to 36 scale. The company does not report the names of students who earn top scores but does confirm names if they are released by others.

Morehead, the daughter of David and Kaleybra Morehead of Pine Bluff, earned the top score the fourth time she took the test, her mother said.

Students can take the ACT up to 12 times, and many do take it multiple times to improve their scores.

Morehead, who plays soccer and various musical instruments and is active in student government, is currently planning a career in medicine.

State recognized for student data

Arkansas is among 24 states nationally recognized in the Data Quality Campaign’s sixth annual state analysis for having all 10 of the “essential elements” for a longitudinal student data system that can be used to identify what is working in schools to improve achievement.

Those elements include instituting a statewide system of teacher and student identifier numbers, and collecting information on the courses students have completed, their scores on state exams and their scores on other exams such as ACT and Advanced Placement tests.

Other elements include the ability to collect statewide student graduation and dropout data and match student data from kindergarten through 12th grades to data from pre-kindergarten and higher education.

The Data Quality Campaign lauded states for “unprecedented progress” in developing data systems. No state had all 10 elements in 2005 but now all states have committed to meeting the standard by September.

The campaign did note that states - including Arkansas - fall short in taking full advantage of the data available to them. No state has taken all 10 identified necessary state actions to ensure the effective use of the data, which limits the ability to improve student achievement.

For example, Arkansas isn’t recorded as having policies calling for the training of teacher candidates and practicing teachers on how to analyze and use data.

The Data Quality Campaign, funded partly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is a national effort to encourage and support policymakers to improve the availability and use of education data to improve student achievement.

Bill would return taxes to districts

A bill filed last week in the Arkansas House of Representatives would require all property taxes collected for schools to be returned to the school district in which they were collected.

House Bill 1435 would amend Arkansas Code Annotated 6-20-2305(a)(4)(B) and (C) to allow school districts to retain property-tax revenue for schools above the state “foundation” funding requirement, which is currently $6,023 per student.

A 25-mill property tax required by the state constitution generated more than that amount per student in four Arkansas school districts this year. The state Department of Education has asked those districts to remit the additional tax revenue from the 2010-11 school year, a total of about $2.56 million.

The state seeks $1,387,567 from Fountain Lake in Garland County; $824,916 from Eureka Springs in Carroll County; $232,734 from Armorel in Mississippi County; and $112,284 from West Side in Cleburne County.

Information for this article was contributed by Bill Bowden of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas, Pages 12 on 02/21/2011

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