Friday, July 29, 2005
Huckabee Delivers Eye-Popping Education Results
We’ve talked a lot on this blog about Governor Huckabee’s successful emphasis on health reforms in Arkansas, which he will soon be taking to the national level with his “Healthy America” initiative as chairman of the National Governor’s Association. Because this blog was launched just 5 short months ago, and because of the rapid succession of health-related events in Huckabee’s schedule, we’ve not really had time to point out to you this fact: Overall, Mike Huckabee is without a doubt THE most successful governor in Arkansas’ history.The fact is Mike Huckabee’s record of success far surpasses Bill Clinton’s in Arkansas.
Huckabee’s successes go far beyond health care reforms and include everything from massive infrastructure projects to conserving Arkansas’ natural resources and heritage. We’ll tell you about all of these successes over the course of the next several months, but today we’ll focus on education.
Soon after becoming governor in 1996, Mike Huckabee began to implement his own ideas for education reforms, resulting in his Smart Start initiative which placed a heavy emphasis on reading and mathematics for students from kindergarten through the fourth grade. Smart Start proved to be so successful that he then created Smart Step, a similar emphasis for students from the fifth through the eighth grades, to carry the success on to higher grades.
Student scores on standardized tests have risen steadily since the creation of Smart Start and Smart Step, something never before achieved in Arkansas (or in most other southern states).
Today (July 29, 2005), the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published an article detailing the tangible results of these programs over the last eight years. The article, headlined “More state students reach upper levels in math exams,” reports the following eye-popping facts released by the Department of Education:
- Twenty-three percent, or almost one in four, Algebra I test takers and 17 percent of geometry test-takers scored at the advanced level on the tests, up a whopping 7 to 9 percentage points from the previous year
- More than half the test-takers in each subject scored at advanced or proficient levels
- Sixty percent of algebra test takers scored at proficient or advanced levels, up 7 percentage points from the previous year
- Fifty-five percent of geometry test-takers scored at those levels, also up 7 percentage points from the year before
- Even more impressively, as the percentages of students scoring at the top two levels on the math exams improved, the percentages of students scoring at the basic and below-basic levels on the test have dropped
- A total of 79 percent of Algebra I test-takers scored at below basic and basic levels the first year the test was given in 2001. That has dropped to 40 percent
- A total of 82 percent of geometry test-takers fell below mastery level in 2001. That has dropped to 45 percent
According to the Democrat-Gazette, Ken James, Arkansas’ education commissioner, attributed the improvements to the training that has been provided to Arkansas teachers through Huckabee’s Smart Start program for teachers in kindergarten through fourth grades and the Smart Step program for teachers of middle-grade students.
And don’t think Mike Huckabee is satisfied with these remarkable results. He is working right now on “Next Step,” which will continue to push Arkansas’ education successes through high school.
BSR
