Jared Henderson: Education Is The Key To Our Success

Editor’s note: Jared Henderson, author of this guest commentary, is project manager of ForwARd Arkansas.

Building a stronger future for Arkansas begins with providing all our children with the best education possible. This is true whether our goal is to build up our economy, improve our quality of life or to strengthen our democracy. It is intuitive that a child with a strong education will have a better chance at reaching her full potential—not only as a participant in the global economy but also as a parent, voter and member of her community. Countries around the world and many states here in the United States understand this and are investing accordingly. Now we must come together to do the same.

Enter ForwARd Arkansas.

In late 2014, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Walton Family Foundation and the Arkansas Board of Education joined forces. Their goal: to improve Arkansas’ education system and prepare students for success in college and the workplace. We brought together a diverse group—geographically, professionally, racially and socioeconomically—of Arkansans to lead the charge. This steering committee is using their combined 400 years of experience in Arkansas education, along with input from folks across our state, to develop a plan to strengthen our education system with specific recommendations for schools and districts in academic distress.

In late January, we released The State of Education in Arkansas report, a compilation of extensive research on school performance, student demographics, test scores, graduation rates and other education metrics. Arkansans can download our full report or an executive summary (in English and Spanish) at ForwardArkansas.org and AdelanteArkansas.org.

Thanks to the efforts of countless educators and community members across our state, there are many bright spots in Arkansas’ education system to build upon. We have been successful in improving access to educational options and increasing participation in higher education activities. For example, Arkansas is ranked in the top 20 nationally in pre-K access. There has been a substantial increase in the number of students who are taking Advanced Placement exams and the ACT, now ranking us sixth in the nation. Similarly, due to purposeful effort across the state, our college-going rate is also well above the national average.

Despite these gains, learning outcomes by Arkansas students are still far below their peers across the nation. Our college graduation rate is 38%—ranking us 48th in the nation. The achievement gap is still significant, and this is reflected in our economic, racial and regional disparities. And although we have high-and low-performing schools in every region, access to these high-performing schools varies significantly depending upon where you live.

While Arkansas has made some meaningful improvements to our education system, we still have a long way to go. The educational attainment of Arkansans must increase not only for the benefit of individual students, but for the well-being of our state as a whole. Without substantive progress, Arkansas’ economy will not reach its full potential, nor will our overall quality of life improve.

We are convinced that incredible progress is possible in Arkansas, and we know it must be a product of input and effort from around the state. We appreciate those who have shared their input with us — the more than 8,100 Arkansans who completed our online survey, the 550 participants in our discussion groups and the many parents, students and teachers who joined our online conversations on social media — and we look forward to releasing our recommendations this summer.

Together, let’s keep taking steps to improve public education and help all Arkansas students succeed.