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— Those school districts could fall under the state’s radar, and escape intervention by the state’s Department of Education. That intervention can range from simple assistance to replacing the school superintendent.

Under the new rule, a school district will be considered “academically distressed” if no more than 49.5 of its students make decent test scores-“proficient” or better. Or if some of its schools keep turning out students who under-perform on those tests. In either case, the state can now step in, and should.

Naturally some school superintendents will find all sorts of reasons-that is, excuses-to oppose the new rule. They’ll argue that exceptions should be made in this case or that, and soon enough the exceptions will have become the unsatisfactory rule.The state’s board of education didn’t buy that line, and concluded that, in the end, there is only one practical standard to go by: “student achievement.” No excuses.

The board is to be applauded for upholding its standards-and even tightening them.

Excuses won’t improve education in Arkansas, or the future of our young people. Only insisting on achievement will do that.

NOW THAT election day is over, and the sound and fury of competing campaigns fade, there is time to concentrate on what really matters: the education of the next generation. Which is no simple matter that can be decided by one election or all of them. Like all great projects, this one requires persistence, patience and, most of all, unceasing attention. If there is a single phrase to sum up all those rare qualities, it is constancy of purpose. And no distractions, even elections, should obscure the over-riding importance of education, which determines a country’s very future.

Here in Arkansas last week, the state’s Board of Education adopted still another rule to tighten academic standards. It fills a gap in the system that allows the state to intervene when a local school board continues to undereducate the next generation.

Under the old rule, the state could intervene when it found that 75 percent of a school district’s students were scoring at the lowest, or “below basic,” level on standardized tests. Which sounds fair enough-except that in some districts, even those whose students met this minimal standard, whole schools might have students performing abysmally even if the district as a whole met this minimal standard.

Editorial, Pages 24 on 11/07/2012

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