Education
Arkansas has a strong commitment to provide every citizen with the opportunity for lifelong learning, from pre-kindergarten through postsecondary and on to continuing education.
The Arkansas P-16 Partnership works to create a seamless education for students while allowing a more effective use of education dollars. Involving all the state education agencies and institutions, pre-school through college, as well as officials from the legislative and executive branch, business leaders, educators and parents, the Partnership builds on work already underway that stresses clear, high standards and fair, objective accountability measures. It also enables employers to find diplomas, certificates and licenses more dependable as evidence of what a prospective employee knows and can do.
Elementary/Secondary Education
The Arkansas legislature requires that the state's education system produce academically competent students who can demonstrate their competency in a core curriculum and apply their knowledge and skills. Rigorous learning standards have been defined in the Arkansas Curriculum Frameworks, discipline-based documents that clearly describe what students must master by grades 4, 8 and 12.
A successful elementary school experience is the foundation for the rest of a child's education. And to ensure all students are ready to learn in the early grades, the Arkansas Better Chance for School Success program provides pre-school programs for at-risk students, from birth through 5 years old. Arkansas corporations support this program, understanding the necessity of improving education not only for their own economic success, but for the entire state's future.
For students in grades K-4, Smart Start is a comprehensive approach to improving reading and mathematics achievement. The goal of Smart Start is to have all children meet or exceed grade-level requirements in reading and mathematics by grade 4.
Smart Step emphasizes student achievement in grades 5-8, providing the resources, materials and expertise for middle-school educators to help Smart Start students continue their academic progress.
Smart Start and Smart Step are part of the Arkansas Comprehensive Testing, Assessment and Accountability Program, a system covering pre-kindergarten through 12th grade that incorporates the recommendations of the Excellence in Arkansas Public Education Task Force. It consists of six related components:
- Academic standards
- Professional development
- Student assessment
- Public reporting of achievement
- School improvement planning
- Rewards and sanctions
In 1991, Arkansas was one of the first states in the nation to establish a residential public high school for academically advanced juniors and seniors. The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Science and the Arts in Hot Springs consistently ranks among the top 1 percent of schools in the nation. Almost 300 students are enrolled in the school, representing more than 85 percent of Arkansas counties. The school also serves as a training center for teachers to develop curriculum and offers extensive statewide distance learning.
Through advanced technology, Arkansas students excel in rural as well as urban school districts. More than 100 Arkansas high schools offer Environmental and Spatial Technology (EAST), a nationally acclaimed program supported by a collaborative partnership involving Intergraph Corporation, several universities and the Arkansas Department of Education. In project-based lab classes, students use geographic information systems (GIS) and computer-aided design (CAD) to develop real-world applications for community projects, such as:
- Improving 911 responses by mapping rural areas and displaying the information on laptop computers in fire and police vehicles,
- Providing school boards with alternate bus routes in rapidly expanding districts, and
- Conducting environmental studies on urban wetlands
Secondary vocational education is available to every public school student in the state, either at the high school or a secondary area vocational center that serves students from surrounding school districts. Career orientation, which introduces students to different careers and workplace expectations, is required of every student at the junior high school level as a prerequisite for all programs of study/career majors developed by the Department of Workforce Education.
Arkansas has restructured high school vocational education to help students make a smoother transition from school to postsecondary education and/or the workplace. Career opportunities, "High Schools that Work," and youth apprenticeship are part of this systemic change that provides students with academically challenging courses.
Arkansas employers significantly participate in many school-to-work activities, such as Bridging the Gap, an exemplary program sponsored by businesses, universities and foundations. Educators from all over the state attend a two-week "boot camp," where employers instruct them in skills required in today's workplace. The educators then intern for two weeks at companies throughout Arkansas.
Higher Education
In Arkansas there are 22 two-year colleges, 10 universities, a medical school, and two law schools, as well as 11 independent colleges and universities. Enrollment at Arkansas colleges and universities reached an all-time high of 141,500 in Fall 2005. Since 2000, enrollment has grown by 17 percent, and by almost 60 percent since 1990.
Five Arkansas institutions drew top honors from U. S. News and World Report in 2005. And five of the 25 fastest-growing two-year colleges in the country are in Arkansas, according to a 2004 article in Community College Week.
In 2005 the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville surpassed its $1 billion goal set for the Campaign for the Twenty-First Century after a $12.5 million gift from the Tyson Foods Foundation of Springdale put it over the top. In April 2002, the University of Arkansas received $300 million from the Walton Family Charitable Foundation, the largest gift ever made to a public university. This gift was in addition to the $50 million the Foundation had given to the university's Sam Walton School of Business, which was rated 50th among the top 200 economic departments in the world, according to the Journal of the European Economic Association.
Engineering students at the University of Arkansas' High Density Electronics Center design innovations like micro-chip housing for various applications in the automobile industry.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, an urban university in the heart of the state's capital city, houses the "Cyber College," the College of Information Science and Systems Engineering. It is one of only a few academic institutions in the country with a Virtual Reality Center featuring a 3-D CAVE immersive environment. The Cyber College is also among a small group of U. S. universities with an accredited degree program in construction management, as well as a degree in systems engineering, with options in mechanical, electrical, computing and telecommuting engineering.
The challenges of an aging population are getting a high degree of attention at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock. UAMS houses one of only three geriatric departments in the country affiliated with a college of medicine. The department trains professionals in this developing area of medical treatment, prevention, wellness and functional independence. U.S. News and World Report ranks the UAMS Department of Geriatrics among the top 10 in the nation and regularly includes UAMS among America's best hospitals and graduate schools.
UAMS just completed a 540,000 square foot campus expansion, the largest construction effort in Arkansas since the series of navigational locks was built on the Arkansas River in the 1960s. Growth continues at UAMS with additions to the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
Research and Development
UAMS is also noted for medical research. Arkansas doctors have announced major discoveries in treating osteoporosis through bone regeneration. The university's Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute is internationally known in several areas, including multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cell. More patients with myeloma are treated at the UAMS Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy than anywhere else in the world. UAMS physicians and surgeons also staff Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the nation.
UAMS BioVentures, housed on the UAMS camputs, connects scientific research and industry. BioVentures, a business development initiative that includes a technology business incubator program for bio-medical entrepreneurs, links to capital resources and access to scientists in academia, federal labs and industry.
BioVentures has propelled 18 new companies into the marketplace - with another four in the pipeline - transferring more than 150 patent applications to businesses. UAMS forecasts that another two or three companies will start up each year. Examples of client companies are Safe Foods Corporation, which makes food safety technologies that reduce contamination during processing, and Contour Med, which makes custom-fitting prosthetics for breast cancer patients.
UAMS is part of a scientific corridor in central Arkansas that fosters cooperative research projects involving the Veterans Administration Medical Center and the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR). Located between Little Rock and Pine Bluff, NCTR is the U. S. Food and Drug Administration's primary center for risk assessment. Adjacent to NCTR is the Pine Bluff Arsenal, the nation's premiere chemical and biological defense arsenal, with more than $1 billion in assets.
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and seven partner institutions recently received a five-year, $16.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to expand and improve biomedical research in Arkansas.
UAMS, Arkansas Children's Hospital; Arkansas State University; the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture; and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville are members of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI), created as the major research component of the Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000. ABI scientists focus on agricultural research with medical implications, bioengineering research that expands genetic knowledge and nutrition, and other research aimed at preventing and treating congenital and hereditary conditions of cancer.
Arkansas State University has a new Ph.D. program in molecular biosciences, focusing on plant biotechnology systems including plant-made pharmaceuticals, nutriceuticals and diagnostic tools for food science. Participants will be involved in a variety of disciplines including agriculture, medicine, forensics, environmental sciences, food sciences and renewable energy.
The University of Arkansas's GENESIS Business Incubator is recognized as one of the most outstanding small business technology transfer programs in the country and has been used internationally as a model for similar programs.
