FOUNDATION WILL FUND UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SURVEY OF K-12 SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A $233,925 grant to the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions will fund a study of the implementation of school accountability programs in several states around the country.

The study will by conducted by principal investigator Dr. Gary Ritter, assistant professor of education and public policy; co-investigator Dr. Sean Mulvenon, associate professor of educational research and policy studies; and co-investigator Dr. John Murry, associate professor of higher education. All three professors are a part of the College’s department of educational leadership, counseling and foundations.

The grant, awarded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, will allow the researchers, along with faculty colleagues and graduate students, to study best practices in educational accountability systems that have been implemented by North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and New York. These seven states are identified as having comprehensive systems of educational accountability and several years of experience in facing challenges related to program implementation. The researchers believe that Arkansas can derive lessons from the success and failures of these states.

The funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation will help support several graduate student research assistants.

Dean of the College of Education and Health Professions Reed Greenwood said, "This grant will have a tremendous impact on the research conducted by the College. We are grateful to the Smith Richardson Foundation for its interest in and willingness to support our research."

Ritter said that nearly every state in the nation is currently engaged in standards-based school reform in elementary and secondary education. That is, the states are attempting to set educational objectives or "standards" for students in grades K-12, develop assessments that measure whether students are meeting these standards and incorporate accountability mechanisms that hold students and educators responsible for meeting these goals. There has been a recent emphasis on the concept of accountability, in which school districts or the state hold administrators and educators in public schools accountable by rewarding those schools that do well, or by publishing "report cards" measuring a school’s success. The assumption underlying accountability reform is that if educators have a clear direction and the right incentives, then they will ultimately ensure that their students are performing at or above the standards set forth by the state.

Ritter said, "We are not arguing that this is a good reform or a bad reform. Rather, we believe that, like it or not, this type of reform is occurring throughout the country. So, we might as well derive some lessons from those states with experience in implementing comprehensive accountability reforms."

Ritter said, "This grant is the catalyst for us to broaden our research perspectives and conduct in-depth studies of educational accountability systems in several states. Without this funding, it wouldn’t be possible to the research on this level. We hope to share our lessons learned with policymakers in the midst of implementing these reforms in Arkansas, and around the country."

Work on the study will commence in July 2001 and will be housed in the Office of Research and Measurement Evaluation (ORME), of which Dr. Mulvenon is the director. ORME is an educational research agency dedicated to conducting both targeted educational research focusing on issues affecting students in Arkansas and general theoretical work in statistics, testing and educational measurement. Created in 1998, this on-campus office assists local and state agencies in assessing educational programs, conducts research projects for federal agencies and completes program evaluations for private organizations. ORME often works in support of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A paper on educational accountability was presented at the November 2000, Association of Public Policy and Management conference in Seattle, Wash., will be published in the upcoming summer issue of a new journal, "Arkansas Educational Research Policy Studies," or "AERPS," which focuses on educational research issues in Arkansas. The "AERPS" journal is sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Education and will be published out of the ORME office.

In fiscal year 1999-2000, 50.3 percent of the $83 million in private gift support to the U of A was from corporations and foundations.

"The funding from corporations and foundations is a critical component to the University's fund-raising efforts. There is a lot of significant research taking place on this campus that would not be possible without the support of private foundations," Greenwood said. "We will continue to identify foundations that may have similar interests to that of our researchers and who would benefit from forming a liaison with the College, and indeed the University, through grants such as this."