By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The number of Arkansas schools failing to meet minimum standards under the federal No Child Left Behind Act continued to increase last year, the state Department of Education reported today.

The department reported that 407 schools failed to make adequate yearly progress on math and literacy benchmark and end-of-course exams for at least a second consecutive year. That’s up from 375 from the previous year and 325 the year before.

The number of schools failing to make adequate progress for more than five consecutive years was 58, up from 17 a year ago.

“It is a disturbing number, as we see that increase,” newly installed state Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said at a news conference.

But Kimbrell said the state has launched a new plan, Smart Accountability, to “help those schools recognize where their difficulties are and what can be done to help remedy those.”

Smart Accountability, approved by the U.S. Department of Education in January, includes several new ways of categorizing schools. Among them are “targeted” categories, for schools that failed to meet standards because of low test scores among specific groups of students even though the general student population met standards.

As an example, Kimbrell said that if a school has a group of English language learners failing to make adequate yearly progress, “we’re going to target that group. … So it helps the school to identify what group it is, it helps the community to understand, but it also helps the district to be able to focus its intervention efforts in those areas.”

Arkansas had 498 schools that met standards last year and 176 schools that were in their first year of failing to meet standards.

Also released today was the annual list of schools and districts in need of improvement. The U.S. Department of Education does not allow Smart Accountability to apply at the district level.

Arkansas had 25 districts on the improvement list, meaning they failed to meet standards for at least two consecutive years. Sixteen schools were in their first year of failing to meet standards, and 213 met standards.

One district, the Hughes School District in St. Francis County, made the improvement list for the fourth year in a row.

“I can tell you that we have a state director that’s working directly in that district and in that school almost every day,” Kimbrell said.

Other districts and schools are working with the Department of Education, partnerships such as the Arkansas Leadership Academy and private companies such as America’s Choice to improve academically, Kimbrell said.

Kimbrell took over as state education commissioner last month following Ken James’ resignation. James left to become executive vice president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based America’s Choice, which has had a contract with Arkansas since 2006.

No Child Left Behind calls for all students to achieve adequate yearly progress by the 2013-2014 school year.