Education in Arkansas

File:Arkansas School Districts.png]]

Arkansas has 1,064 state-funded kindergartens, elementary, junior and senior high schools.{{cite web|title=Arkansas K-12 Profile: 2016–2017|url=https://adedatabeta.arkansas.gov/Ark12|publisher=Arkansas State Board of Education|access-date=August 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170121061736/https://adedatabeta.arkansas.gov/ARK12|archive-date=January 21, 2017|url-status=dead}}

The state supports a network of public universities and colleges, including two major university systems: Arkansas State University System and University of Arkansas System. The University of Arkansas, flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System in Fayetteville was ranked #63 among public schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.{{cite web |website= College Ranking Lists |url= http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public/spp%2B50/page+2 |publisher= U.S. News & World Report |title= Top Public Schools |year= 2014 |access-date= January 26, 2014 }} Other public institutions include University of Arkansas at Little Rock, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Arkansas Tech University, Henderson State University, Southern Arkansas University, and University of Central Arkansas across the state. It is also home to 11 private colleges and universities including Hendrix College, one of the nation's top 100 liberal arts colleges, according to U.S. News & World Report.{{cite magazine|title=National Liberal Arts College Rankings |magazine=U.S. News & World Report |year=2012 |url=http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges |access-date=September 3, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821213346/http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges |archive-date=August 21, 2016 }}

Slavery was abolished in 1865, and for the first time schooling was made possible for Blacks. From the end of the Reconstruction era in the 1870s down to the 1940s, the state and local governments gave far less money to all-black public schools compared to the favored white public schools. However many private schools for Blacks were funded by Northern philanthropy well into the 20th century. Support came from the American Missionary Association;Joe M. Richardson, Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861–1890 (1986). the Peabody Education Fund; the Jeanes Fund (also known as the Negro Rural School Fund); the Slater Fund; the Rosenwald Fund; the Southern Education Foundation; and the General Education Board, which was massively funded by the Rockefeller family.Stephanie Deutsch, You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South (Northwestern University Press, 2015).James Christopher Carbaugh, "The philanthropic confluence of the General Education Board and the Jeanes, Slater, and Rosenwald Funds: African-American education in South Carolina, 1900-1930" (PhD dissertation, Clemson University, 1997;  ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 9833440.)

In the 1920s the state required all children to attend public schools. The school year was set at 131 days, although some areas were unable to meet that requirement.{{cite book |last1=Holley|first1=Marc J|title=Encyclopedia of Arkansas}}William Oscar Wilson, History of Public School Education in Arkansas: 1900–1918 (University of Chicago, Department of Education, 1918)p. 5.

The most famous episode came in 1957-1958, when "Little Rock Nine" Black students were sent by the school board to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Their enrollment was followed by the "Little Rock Crisis" in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower who sent in the Army. In 1958 Faubus closed the school.{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2294663 | doi=10.2307/2294663 | jstor=2294663 | last1=Branton | first1=Wiley A. | title=Little Rock Revisited: Desegregation to Resegregation | journal=The Journal of Negro Education | date=1983 | volume=52 | issue=3 | pages=250–269 | url-access=subscription }}Numan V. Bartley, "Looking Back at Little Rock," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 25#2 (1966), pp. 101–16. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40023260 online]

Arkansas is one of the least educated U.S. states. It ranks near the bottom in terms of percentage of the population with a high school or college degree. The state's educational system has a history of underfunding, low teachers' salaries and political meddling in the curriculum.{{cite web|last1=Holley|first1=Marc J|title=Encyclopedia of Arkansas|url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2164|website=Education Reform|publisher=University of Arkansas|access-date=August 27, 2017}} However, recent focuses on phonics education have led to an improvement in educational rankings over the past fifteen years.

Educational statistics during the early days are fragmentary and unreliable. Many counties did not submit full reports to the secretary of state, who did double duty as commissioner of common schools. But the percentage of whites over 20 years old who were illiterate was given as:

:1840, 21%

:1850, 25%

:1860, 17%Wilson, (1918) p.16.

In 2010 Arkansas students earned an average score of 20.3 on the ACT exam, just below the national average of 21. These results were expected due to the large increase in the number of students taking the exam since the establishment of the Academic Challenge Scholarship.{{cite web | title= Arkansas's ACT score slips in 2010 | date= August 18, 2010 | publisher= Arkansas Public School Resource Center | url= http://www.apsrc.net/Newsletter/NewsletterDisplay.asp?p1=133&p2=Y&Sort= | access-date= September 3, 2012 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130117082700/http://www.apsrc.net/Newsletter/NewsletterDisplay.asp?p1=133&p2=Y&Sort= | archive-date= January 17, 2013 | url-status= dead | df= mdy-all }} Top high schools receiving recognition from the U.S. News & World Report are spread across the state, including Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, KIPP Delta Collegiate in Helena-West Helena, Bentonville, Rogers, Rogers Heritage, Valley Springs, Searcy, and McCrory.{{cite magazine |title= Best High Schools in Arkansas |url= https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/arkansas |magazine= U.S. News & World Report |year= 2012 |access-date= September 3, 2012 }} A total of 81 Arkansas high schools were ranked by the U.S. News & World Report in 2012.{{cite magazine|title=Arkansas High Schools |url=https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/arkansas/rankings |magazine=U.S. News & World Report |year=2012 |access-date=September 3, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120830033733/http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/arkansas/rankings |archive-date=August 30, 2012 }}

File:OldMainUofA.jpg, part of the Campus Historic District at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville]]

Arkansas ranks as the 32nd smartest state on the Morgan Quitno Smartest State Award, 44th in percentage of residents with at least a high school diploma, and 48th in percentage of bachelor's degree attainment.{{cite web | title = 2006–2007 Smartest State Award | publisher = Morgan Quitno Press | url = http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm | access-date = September 3, 2012 }}{{cite web |title= Educational Attainment, American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates |year= 2010 |url= http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_S1501&prodType=table |archive-url= https://archive.today/20200212212928/http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_S1501&prodType=table |url-status= dead |archive-date= February 12, 2020 |publisher= United States Census Bureau |website= 2010 United States Census |access-date= September 3, 2012 }} Arkansas has been making strides in education reform. Education Week has praised the state, ranking Arkansas in the top 10 of their Quality Counts Education Rankings every year since 2009 while scoring it in the top{{nbs}}5 during 2012 and 2013.{{cite web|url=http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2009/17src.h28.html|title=Quality Counts 2009—State Report Cards—Education Week|website=edweek.org|date=January 8, 2009}}{{cite web|url=http://www.edweek.org/media/qualitycounts2012_release.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.edweek.org/media/qualitycounts2012_release.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Quality counts |date=2012 |website=edweek.org }}{{cite news|url=http://www.edweek.org/media/QualityCounts2013_Release.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.edweek.org/media/QualityCounts2013_Release.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Qua;ity counts |date=2013 |newspaper=Education Week }} Arkansas specifically received an A in Transition and Policy Making for progress in this area consisting of early-childhood education, college readiness, and career readiness.{{cite news |first= Amy M. |last= Hightower |title= States Show Spotty Progress on Education Gauges |url=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/10/16sos.h32.html?tkn=RLRF%2B4mUV1fjxGZAPk7Od%2FfW1p2K2SFHTAx9&intc=EW-QC13-EWH |newspaper= Education Week |volume= 32 |issue= 16 |pages= 42, 44 |access-date= June 23, 2015 }} Governor Mike Beebe has made improving education a major issue through his attempts to spend more on education.{{cite news |title= Lawsuit may go way of Lake View district |last= Blagg |first= Brenda |publisher= Dewitt Era-Enterprise |date= April 12, 2007 |page= 4A |location= DeWitt, Arkansas }} Through reforms, the state is a leader in requiring curricula designed to prepare students for postsecondary education, rewarding teachers for student achievement, and providing incentives for principals who work in lower-tier schools.{{cite web |title= The states with the best and worst schools |date= January 30, 2013 |url= http://homes.yahoo.com/news/where-the-best-and-worst-schools-are-021737613.html |publisher= Yahoo |last1= Sauter |first1= Michael |last2= Weigley |first2= Samuel |access-date= February 1, 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130202160339/http://homes.yahoo.com/news/where-the-best-and-worst-schools-are-021737613.html |archive-date= February 2, 2013 |url-status= dead }}

Generally prohibited in the Western world at large, school corporal punishment is not unusual in recent Arkansas experience, with 20,083 public school students{{efn|This figure refers to only the number of students paddled, regardless of whether a student was spanked multiple times in a year, and does not refer to the number of instances of corporal punishment, which would be substantially higher.}} paddled at least one time, according to government data for the 2011–12 school year. The rate of corporal punishment in public schools is higher only in Mississippi.{{cite web|url=http://corpun.com/counuss.htm |title= Corporal punishment in US schools |publisher=World Corporal Punishment Research | last = Farrell | first = Colin | date=February 2016|access-date=April 4, 2016}}

As an organized territory, and later in the early days of statehood, education was funded by the sales of federally controlled public lands. This system was inadequate and prone to local graft. In an 1854 message to the legislature, Governor Elias N. Conway said, "We have a common-school law intended as a system to establish common schools in all part of the state; but for the want of adequate means there are very few in operation under this law." At the time, only about a quarter of children were enrolled in school. By the beginning of the American Civil War, the state had only twenty-five publicly funded common schools.William Oscar Wilson, History of Public School Education in Arkansas: 1900–1918 (University of Chicago, Department of Education, 1918) pp. 3, 8.

In 1864 the chairman of the committee on education of the state legislature stated that the state government has:

mismanaged and squandered to a great extent the appropriations or donations made by the United States [federal government] to this State for school purposes. We have had over 1,000 acres of land appropriated in this state to purposes of education, but under the management of our public functionaries it has amounted to almost nothing.Wilson, (1918) p. 5.

In 1867, the state legislature was still controlled by ex-Confederates. It passed a Common Schools Law that allowed public funded but limited schools to white children.

The 1868 legislature banned former Confederates and passed a more wide-ranging law detailing funding and administrative issues and allowing black children to attend school. In furtherance of this, the postwar 1868 state constitution was the first to permit a personal-property tax to fund the lands and buildings for public schools. With the 1868 elections, the first county school commissioners took office.Wilson, (1918) p.4.

In 2014, the state spent $9,616 per student, compared with a national average of about $11,000 putting Arkansas in nineteenth place.{{cite web|title=Education Spending Per Student by State|date=February 9, 2012|url=http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html|publisher=Governing|access-date=August 27, 2017}}

According to ERIC (1970), the story begins in 1871 with the founding of Arkansas Industrial University, a land-grant school renamed as the University of Arkansas. The Branch Normal College for Blacks began in 1873; it became Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College in 1927, and University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 1972. From time to time several schools began as agricultural high schools, junior colleges or normal institutes (for training elementary teachers). Most expanded to their present status. The early ones were small and had very small budgets, and little or no state oversight.

• 1829 Territorial legislature permits townships to establish schoolsWilson (1918) passim.
• 1868 State law requires racial segregation of schools
• 1871 University of Arkansas established
• 1873 University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff established as a school to train black teachers
• 1877 Philander Smith College established as a school for black students
• 1890 Henderson State University established (as a private school, becoming Henderson State Teachers College in 1929)
• 1885 Arkansas School for the Deaf and Arkansas School for the Blind established
• 1909 Arkansas Tech University, Southern Arkansas University, University of Arkansas at Monticello and Arkansas State University established as schools offering high school diplomas and vocational training
• 1920s Schooling made compulsory
• 1925 University of Central Arkansas established (as Arkansas State Normal School)
• 1948 University of Arkansas School of Law admits a black student
• 1957 Governor Orval Faubus uses National Guard troops to oppose racial integration of Little Rock Central High School
• 1958 United States Supreme Court overrules the governor
• 1983 Arkansas State Supreme Court rules that the state's funding of education is Constitutionally deficient

• History of education in the Southern United States
• History of Arkansas
• Little Rock Nine, school crisis in 1957-1958

{{notelist}}

• Alderson, Willis Brewer. "A history of Methodist higher education in Arkansas, 1836-1933" (PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas;  ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1971. 7119528.).

• Barker, Bruce O. "A Report on Rural Education in Arkansas." (1983). [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED231583.pdf ERIC online]
• Castelow, Teri L. "Miss Sophia Sawyer: Founder of the Fayetteville Female Seminary." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68.2 (2009): 176-200. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40543182 online]

• Dillard, Tom W. and Michael B. Dougan. Arkansas History: A Selected Research Bibliography (1984)
• Donovan, Timothy Paul, Willard B. Gatewood, and Jeannie M. Whayne, eds. The Governors of Arkansas: Essays in Political Biography (U of Arkansas Press, 1995).

• ERIC. Further Development of Arkansas Higher Education (1972); needs for future; includes brief history. [https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED078832 online]
• ERIC. Comprehensive Study of Higher Education in Arkansas (1980) [https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED031182 online]; focus on junior colleges.

• Hatfield, Kevin Louis. "The history of education in Madison County, Arkansas, 1827-1948" (PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1991. 9204709).
• Johnson, Ben F. “ ‘All Thoughtful Citizens’: The Arkansas School Reform Movement, 1921-1930.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 46#2 (1987), pp. 105–32. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40027788 online]

• Kennedy, Balys Hall. “Half a Century of School Consolidation in Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 27#1 (1968), pp. 59–67. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40018326 online]

• Knight, Edgar. Education in the South (1922) [https://archive.org/details/publiceducation00unkngoog online]
• Ledbetter, Calvin R. “The Fight for School Consolidation in Arkansas, 1946-1948.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 65#1 (2006), pp. 45–57. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40028071 online]

• Leflar, Robert A. “Legal Education in Arkansas: A Brief History of the Law School.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 21#2 (1962) pp. 99–131. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40027569 online]

• Penton, Emily. "Typical Women's Schools in Arkansas before the War of 1861-65." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 4.4 (1945): 325-339. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40018367 online]

• Ritter, Gary W. "Education reform in Arkansas: Past and present." in Reforming education in Arkansas: Recommendations from the Koret Task Force (2005). [https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/P0502_27.pdf online]

• Ritter, Gary W., and Sarah C. McKenzie. “Making Progress?: Education Reform in Arkansas.” in Readings in Arkansas Politics and Government, edited by Kim U. Hoffman, et al., (University of Arkansas Press, 2019), pp. 387–404. [https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvrxk4bq.25 online]

• Shinn, Josiah Hazen. History of education in Arkansas (1900) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ls2gAAAAMAAJ&dq=Education+In+Arkansas&pg=PA11 online], a standard scholarly history.

• Staples, Thomas Starling. Reconstruction in Arkansas, 1862–1874. (Columbia UP, 1923). [https://archive.org/details/reconstructionin01stap/page/n2/mode/1up online]

• Stinnett, T. M. All this and tomorrow too: The evolving and continuing history of the Arkansas Education Association, a century and beyond (1969)

• Wilson, William Oscar. History of public school education in Arkansas, 1900-1918 (1918); covers 1819 to 1918 [https://archive.org/details/historyofpublics00wils/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater online]

• Yuen, Steve Chi-Yin, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, and Erik Johnson. "Augmented reality: An overview and five directions for AR in education." Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE) 4.1 (2011): 11+ [https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=jetde online].

• Bartley, N. V. “Looking Back at Little Rock.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 25#2 (1966), pp. 101–16. [https://doi.org/10.2307/40023260 online]
• Branton, Wiley A. “Little Rock Revisited: Desegregation to Resegregation.” Journal of Negro Education 52#3 (1983), pp. 250–69. [https://doi.org/10.2307/2294663 online]
• Daugherity, Brian James. " 'With all deliberate speed' : the NAACP and the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education at the local level, Little Rock, Arkansas" (PhD dissertation, University of Montana ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1997. EP38739).

• Finley, Randy. From Slavery to Uncertain Freedom: The Freedman's Bureau in Arkansas 1865–1869 (U of Arkansas Press, 1996).
• Gamble, Vanessa Northington. " 'No Struggle, No Fight, No Court Battle': The 1948 Desegregation of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine." Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 68.3 (2013): 377-415. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/24672116 online]

• Kilpatrick, Judith. "Desegregating the University of Arkansas School of Law: L. Clifford Davis and the Six Pioneers." The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68.2 (2009): 123-156. [https://arkansasblacklawyers.uark.edu/articles/ahq68-2.pdf online]

• Kennedy, Thomas C. "Southland College: The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 42.3 (1983): 207-238. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40030759 online]

• Kirk, John A. "Not Quite Black and White: School Desegregation in Arkansas, 1954-1966". Arkansas Historical Quarterly (2011) 70 (3): 225–257. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/23193404 online]

• Kirk, John A. "The Little Rock crisis and postwar Black activism in Arkansas." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 66.2 (2007): 224-242. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40018700 online]

• McMillen, Neil R. “The White Citizens’ Council and Resistance to School Desegregation in Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 66#2 (2007), pp. 125–44. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/40018695 online]
• Martin, William H. "Negro Higher and Professional Education in Arkansas." Journal of Negro Education 17.3 (1948): 255-264. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2966363 online]
• Moneyhon, Carl H. The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas: Persistence in the Midst of Ruin (U of Arkansas Press, 2002).

• Ramsey, Patsy. "Crossing Boundaries: Racial Desegregation of Arkansas Public Higher education" (PhD dissertation, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2009. DP20157).

• Smith, C. Calvin, and Linda Walls Joshua, eds. Educating the Masses: The Unfolding History of Black School Administrators in Arkansas, 1900-2000 (University of Arkansas Press, 2003) 223 pages.
• Staples, Thomas Starling. Reconstruction in Arkansas, 1862–1874. (Columbia UP, 1923). [https://archive.org/details/reconstructionin01stap/page/n2/mode/1up online]
• Stephan, A. Stephen. "Desegregation of higher education in Arkansas." Journal of Negro Education 27.3 (1958): 243-252. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2293757 online]

• Stockley, Grif. Ruled by Race : Black/White Relations in Arkansas from Slavery to the Present (U of Arkansas Press, 2008).

• Williams-Pryor, Shay. "Barriers to African American Women in Higher Education Leadership in Arkansas" (PhD dissertation, Fielding Graduate University; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  2023. 30689609).
• Wynn, Xavier Zinzeindolph. "The development of African-American schools in Arkansas, 1863-1963: A historical comparison of Black and White schools with regards to funding and the quality of education" (PhD dissertation, The University of Mississippi; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1995. 9601443).

• [https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/ Encyclopedia of Arkansas], comprehensive coverage
• [https://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=arkahistquar Scholarly articles] from Arkansas Historical Quarterly

Category:Liberal arts colleges in Arkansas

Category:Public universities and colleges in Arkansas