Arkansas Blog

By and large, Arkansas' schools have not adopted DI to a large degree. A few did (and have shown some major advances,) but, for the large part, DI is still shunned by a majority of the schools in the state.

I don't know about the pushing of the Direct Instruction program, but what about the State's sudden interest in the America's Choice program? After announcing competitive grants for school improvement in the amount of $100,000 per school, requiring attendance at a meeting to hear details about proposal submission, not to mention the hours of research and writing that real classroom teachers put into writing proposals that they believed would help their students--the State Department of Education decided not to award the grants, but instead to invest in the America's Choice program for specified schools. With all the focus on accountability and the pressure on classroom teachers and students to perform to a standard, why not a cry for accountability where the real money is?

The American Federation of Teachers wrote a fairly comprehensive review of the program. Look for yourself at:

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/aftdi.html

It still doesn't excuse the sorry way the Bush department handled it.

Burvul, who is not registered, asks that I pass this comment along:

My sister, who's in the field says Arkansas is about the only state
that didn't give in and write a grant for the curriculum the feds were
pushing: "Our grant was all about professional development and balanced
literacy (which means teachers have choice to use various programs)."