More than half the schools in the Springdale School Distritct are failing to meet standards set by the federal goverment in the No Child Left Behind act.

Arkansas educators have proposed a waiver to combine subgroups in order to be able to meet standards. Subgroups are categories of students based on race and economic class. Each subgroup is required to pass standardized tests and if they fail, the state can make changes to the school.

If the waiver is passed, the likelihood of a subgroup failing and causing the school to fail to meet standards is considerably less.

I think that this is a great idea. Plenty of schools don’t deserve to be failing and should be given the best opportunity to meet standards.

While this waiver is not going to completely fix the problem, I think it’s a step in the right direction. If the state keeps working on meeting federal standards, the future of Arkansas’ education is bright.