Arkansas City Public Schools is 11th in the state of Kansas for significantly narrowing the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students, announced Standard and Poor’s School Evaluation Services last week.

Standard & Poor’s has identified 22 Kansas school districts for significantly narrowing the gaps in achievement between black, Hispanic or economically disadvantaged students and their higher-performing classmates while simultaneously raising the average proficiency rates of the student groups being compared, such as black students and white students.

Arkansas City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ron Ballard said narrowing the achievement gap is a goal in the district’s Strategic Plan.

"Increasing student achievement and narrowing the achievement gap are top goals in the Arkansas City Public School District,” he said. “This report is evidence we are making progress and reaching our goals.”

Dr. Ballard said this report compares Arkansas City to wealthier districts such as Blue Valley, Auburn Washburn, Olathe, Seaman, Shawnee Heights and Shawnee Mission.

“Many schools have had specific revenue sources, such as a sales tax, to generate more funding from,” he said. “But our district uses traditional revenue sources and federal grants. We are able to narrow the achievement gap significantly at no additional tax to the local taxpayer.”

Arkansas City narrowed the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students by 9.4 percentage points, compared to the statewide average of 1.2 percentage points.

To be recognized in Standard & Poor’s analytical report, school districts must:

• Serve all grades K-12;
  
• Enroll 30 students, on average, per student subgroup being compared, per grade;
  
• Reduce the achievement gap in overall reading and math proficiency (RaMP) rates by at least 5 percentage points between the 2002-03 and 2003-04 school years; and
  
• Simultaneously raise the RaMP rates of both of the subgroups being compared over this same period of time.
  

“Closing the achievement gap is one of the most persistent challenges in American education today,” said William Cox, executive managing director of Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services in New York. “Given the complex nature and extreme difficulty in closing these gaps, Standard & Poor’s believes it is important to pay tribute to those school districts that have made progress in this area.”

Standard & Poor’s developed this analysis to recognize those school districts that have made significant improvement in reducing achievement gaps and to illuminate school districts that may serve as appropriate benchmarks for educators in other school districts in the state that are searching for ways to narrow their own achievement gaps while raising the performance of all of their students.

Achieving proficiency in reading and math for all students – not just some – by 2014 is one of the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

For the purposes of this analytical report, academic performance was determined by using RaMP, which is the aggregate percentage of students within school districts scoring proficient or better on the state’s reading and math tests.

Cox said he also hoped that Standard & Poor’s analytical report sheds light on the power of using data to probe for diagnostic insights that can help improve educators’ decision making.

Standard & Poor’s conducted its analysis using data obtained from SchoolMatters.com, which is a free public service sponsored by the National Education Data Partnership, a collaboration among the Council of Chief State School Officers, Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services and the CELT Corporation. The National Education Data Partnership is generously funded by The Broad Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The list of school districts identified as significantly narrowing the achievement gap and the analysis used to identify them can be found on the Kansas homepage of schoolmatters.com.