Today we learned that three Arkansas schools were named National Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education. The annual recognition is given to schools based on academic performance, or progress toward closing achievement gaps among student groups on tests.
S. C. Tucker Elementary School in Danville and Westside Elementary School in Cabot were recognized as Exemplary High Performing Schools. Parkview Elementary School in Van Buren was recognized as an Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing School. Congratulations to these schools!
Since the Blue Ribbon program began in 1982, 69 Arkansas schools have been recognized as Blue Ribbon Schools. Arkansas’ award winners are generally public schools, but three private schools have also been named. You can check out the full list here.
Like we discussed recently regarding U.S. News rankings of the ‘best’ high schools, award programs may have a different method for determining what counts as ‘best’ or ‘blue ribbon’ than we do within the state. We wanted to take a peek and see how Arkansas’ recent Blue Ribbon winners are faring on the things Arkansas feels are the most important for public schools.
For the schools announced today, 2 received “A”s and 1 received a “B” letter grade in 2022. Here at OEP, we know that schools serving more economically advantaged populations are more likely to get an “A” because their students tend to perform better on the state assessments. Our focus is on how much growth students make in their learning over the course of a year, because we think that is the best indicator of how well a school is helping students learn. We were excited to see that all three of this year’s Blue ribbon Schools were in the top 1% for student academic growth and OEP award winners!
How are schools that have been awarded Blue Ribbons in the past performing? School performance can change over time, so we examined the 2022 letter grades for the 16 public schools that have been awarded Blue Ribbons since 2017 when consideration first began to be based on the ACT Aspire exams.
Of these 16 prior Blue Ribbon Schools, 9 received a letter grade of “A” from the state in 2022. Three prior Blue Ribbon Schools received a “B”, 1 school received a “C”, 2 schools received a “D”, and 1 school received an “F”.
In terms of growth, only 5 of the 16 prior Blue Ribbon Schools were in the top 10% for student academic growth in 2022.
School ESSA reports and associated letter grades for 2023 will be released soon, and OEP will be sending out awards to those schools where students are demonstrating the highest growth! Unlike the process to get a “Blue Ribbon”, schools don’t need to get nominated or fill out application to get an OEP award. They just need to demonstrate Outstanding Educational Performance by growing learning for all students!
Stay tuned to find out if your school is a 2023 OEP award winner!