ABOUT ACE

The Arkansas Coalition for Education is a statewide coalition of public school parents, students, educators, and community members working to ensure our students have excellent and well-funded public schools. We do this work because strengthening our schools strengthens our communities, expands opportunity for our children, and improves outcomes outside of the classroom.

The Arkansas Constitution promises every student an exceptional education. But we know that not every school has the resources it needs to meet the needs of their students. We believe the quality of a child’s education should not be dependent on their zip code, family income, race, background, or other socioeconomic factor.

Our coalition advocates for a public education system that works better for all students. That means standing up for students from low-income backgrounds, students of color, students with disabilities, students in rural Arkansas, student parents, LGBTQ+ youth, and English language learners. We’re working together to improve every community’s public schools, for the benefit of every child and all of Arkansas.

Priority 1: Rigorous Learning Experiences

Every student in Arkansas deserves a school that prepares them for the opportunities and demands of our modern world. Students deserve high-quality and culturally respectful instruction and learning materials.

Policy Goals:

Focus on student growth and equitable resource allocation in Arkansas’ statewide accountability, assessment, and educator evaluation systems. We want to see continuous improvement for districts, educators, and ultimately students.
Ensure students have access to curriculum, materials, and supports that are academically sound and that respect the identities, cultures, languages, and backgrounds of all students.
Expand access to high-quality, affordable early childhood education, to provide earlier access to literacy and developmentally appropriate learning.

Priority 2: Funding and Resource Equity

Every Arkansas public school student deserves a school that receives adequate and equitable funding - based on student needs and ambitious outcome goals.

Policy Goals:

Increase funding to improve outcomes for students from low-income backgrounds, English learners, students with disabilities, and students in rural schools.
Increase state per-pupil allocations to ensure our per-student funding level is at or above the national average.
Adequately fund school districts with declining enrollment, to prevent the deterioration of education outcomes that result from resource drain.
Develop research on how Arkansas’s funding and accountability systems identify and resource schools that serve under-performing students and students living in poverty.

Priority 3: Educator Workforce

Every Arkansas student deserves access to expert and competitively compensated teachers, leaders, and staff. Our education workforce should reflect the state’s racial and linguistic diversity.

Policy Goals:

Publish real-time teacher and leader retention, turnover, and vacancy data, to better understand and support the educator workforce.
Increase low-cost, high-quality pathways into teaching that move the teacher workforce closer to student body racial and linguistic diversity.
Empower school districts to grow their own, train, and retain highly effective teachers and school leaders.
Increase pay to regionally competitive rates for paraprofessional staff, with an emphasis on school nurses, drivers, and para-pros who work directly with ELL and special education populations.

Priority 4: Student Development

Every Arkansas student deserves a physically safe, emotionally supportive, diverse, and linguistically accessible education environment. These environmental factors are determinant of learning and health outcomes.

Policy Goals:

Eliminate exclusionary school discipline practices for non-violent offenses.
Meet communities’ education facilities concerns.
Support whole-child development, and provide training and resources for educators on cultural competence, classroom management, and relevant skill-building.
Support student attendance and holistic wellbeing in both P–12 and higher education by investing in mental health, physical health, and basic needs resources. This includes needs-based community clinic models, in-school social workers and mental health professionals, and partnerships with community dental care providers.

Priority 5: Higher Education

Every Arkansas student deserves an affordable postsecondary degree or credential that provides them with economic opportunity in Arkansas's changing economy. All students deserve guidance and wrap-around supports that help them enter a post-secondary learning environment and finish their course of study.

Policy Goals:

Optimize Arkansas’s financial aid system and prioritize the tuition and non-tuition needs of students from nontraditional and low-income backgrounds.
Provide targeted, high-quality college advising - from high school to postsecondary - to address equity gaps in college enrollment and completion.
Revise the in-state tuition policy for public institutions to protect every Arkansas high school graduate's access to an in-state postsecondary education, regardless of citizenship status or background. Revise in-state tuition policy to slash tuition rates for every Arkansas high school graduate.