State Gets Good School News (Editorial)
by October 14, 2002 12:00 am 57 views
Despite charges of playing politics with the timing of the announcement, it was good to hear recently that Arkansas students in grades 4, 6 and 8 bettered last year’s test scores in five of six areas of literacy and math.
Fourth-grade literacy scores were up 22 percent on the benchmark exams, and sixth-grade math scores were up 19 percent.
The only area that failed to make progress was eighth-grade literacy, which stayed the same as last year with only 37 percent scoring at or above grade level.
The tests show 65 percent of fourth-graders are proficient or above in literacy and 55 percent in math, a gain of 7 percent. In the sixth grade, 30 percent are proficient or above in literacy, a gain of 10 percent, and 36 percent in math, a gain of 19 percent. In math, 24 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient or above, a gain of 3 percent.
It must be noted that most sixth- and eighth-grade students are still well below proficiency, but progress has to start somewhere.
Now the Bad News
The recession that has cut incomes and swelled poverty rolls nationwide has hit Arkansas harder than most states because so many Arkansans already have low incomes.
The national poverty rate rose last year for the first time in eight years to 11.7 percent from 11.4. Some 32.9 million Americans now live in poverty, up 1.3 million over the previous year. The average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2001 was $18,104 in annual income; $9,039 for individuals.
Where was Arkansas? Tied with Mississippi for second at 17.1 percent. Only New Mexico’s poverty rate was higher at 17.7 percent.
To add insult to injury, household income also fell last year. Arkansas’ median household income was $31,932 in 2001. Thank goodness for West Virginia at $29,952. (Mississippi’s was $32,700.) The national median household income was down 2.2 percent to $42,228 — the first decline since 1991.
One good bit of news out of all this was that median earnings for women increased 3.5 percent last year, rising to $29,215. For men, median earnings remained the same at $38,275.
Instead of all of the negative campaigning we’ve had to endure this fall, it would be nice if a few of our political leaders focused on tackling some of these problems rather than just “mud wrestling” with each other.