THE SOUTH. Woe is us. We’re just a bunch of mouth-breathers, doncha know. We can’t help it; our DNA makes us plant pink flamingos and white tires in the front yard. Ours is the land of wife-beater T-shirts, junk cars in the front yard, and tarpaper shacks. Old times here are not forgotten, and the past isn’t even the past. Then you read one li’l ol’ newspaper story, or two, and all those comfortable stereotypes are blown apart. Aw shucks. Just when we’d grown used to them. This shocker was in the paper Wednesday: The Southern Regional Education Board has issued a report showing 26 percent of the kids in Southern schools took at least one Advanced Placement exam last year.
Only 26 percent. That bad, huh ?
Actually, it’s two percentage points higher than the national average.
What in the name of Pappy and Mammy Yokum is going on here ?
The South has a higher percentage of kids taking AP classes than the rest of the country ? Where’s the fun in that ?
This is serious, folks. All them redneck jokes are starting to sound strained.
Guess which state—we’ll give you one and only one guess—posted the greatest increase in the number of kids taking those AP classes ? Hint: It’s the same state that has had the largest increase for two years running.
Nope, not Texas. Or Florida.
You’re kidding us. You knew the answer all along, else the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wouldn’t be emphasizing it in its editorial column today. Yep, the answer is the Natural State, which is getting more cultivated every semester. The percentage of Arkansas seniors who took at least one AP exam in 2006 was 31 percent. Almost a third of all students. Remember all those education reforms pushed by Mike Huckabee, and then the other Mike (Beebe ), and finally passed by the Legislature with more than a nudge from the state Supreme Court ? Well, they’ve been worth it.
SO WE were getting our mouths all set to write this editorial, when our lady in education, Cynthia Howell, published this bit of news in Friday’s paper: Arkansas’ benchmark exams for reading—given to kids in the fourth and eighth grade—are among the hardest in the nation.
Not just in the South. Not just among states in the Mississippi Delta. In the nation.
While Tennessee and Mississippi are being criticized for giving kids a rating as Proficient even if they meet only wet-noodle standards, Arkansas is being praised.
That’s good news in more ways than one. Because if we here in Arkansas were interested in just good PR and making Top 10 lists—instead of educating our kids—we could offer AP classes in basket-weaving all semester long and get that above-mentioned 31 percent up to a good 80-plus. Hey, let’s just call every class an Advanced Placement class, give every kid an A, and sit back. If we’re not meeting standards, just lower the standards and—voila !—we’ll be the best educated state in the Union. Isn’t that the way our educantists would go ? Then we could run stories every year telling the rest of the country how S-M-R-T we are because here in Arkansas, as in Lake Wobegon, all our kids are way above average ! But that’s not what’s happening here. Not only are kids taking more AP classes in Arkansas than in much of the country, but they’re also passing more difficult benchmark tests.
Once again—and this happens so often we’re starting to repeat it in our sleep, let alone in our editorials—if we’ll just raise our standards, our kids will meet and even exceed them. To quote a darn-near giddy Ken James, the state’s education commissioner / czar / can-do guy: “I am thrilled with this news because it means that when students reach the state’s expectations for proficiency... they are in a prime position to compete with students from anywhere in the United States for college placement and well-paying jobs.” Ah, yes, poor little ol’ backward Arkinsaw. We won’t miss the image. We may even have found the way to change it. Here’s the secret: To change the image, change the reality. It’s not easy but, unlike ersatz solutions like self-esteem or social promotion and all those other fads and scams, it works.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online