Farmington Schools Honored For Test Results

Two Farmington elementary schools have been recognized by the Office for Education Policy with the University of Arkansas.

Bob Folsom Elementary School and Jerry "Pop" Williams Elementary School won an award for their high achievement on the spring 2014 Benchmark exams. Each year, the Office for Education Policy recognizes the highest-performing schools in Arkansas based on the Benchmark and End-of-Course exams. These awards are based on a "school GPA," created by OEP and calculated on the basis of the percentage of students who perform at a particular level on the tests.

The "High-Achieving Overall" award recognizes the 25 elementary and middle schools with the highest school GPAs on the Benchmark exams in math and literacy. Both schools received awards for "High-Achieving Overall Elementary School in Math."

Bob Folsom had 97 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced on the Benchmark math exam. Williams had 92 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced on the Benchmark math exam.

"We have been recognizing educational excellence through the OEP awards for the past six years," said Gary Ritter, director of the Office for Education Policy. "We have enjoyed highlighting the hard work and achievement of excellent students and schools across the states; moreover, we find that educators and school leaders are grateful when the good work they do for Arkansas students is publicly recognized."

The Office for Education Policy (OEP) is a nonpartisan research center whose mission is to disseminate education research and data to aid policymakers and education leaders in making thoughtful decisions about prekindergarten-12th grade education policy and practice in Arkansas.