Education in Arkansas

Their enrollment was followed by the "Little Rock Crisis" in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas.

The state's educational system has a history of underfunding, low teachers' salaries and political meddling in the curriculum.

Many counties did not submit full reports to the secretary of state, who did double duty as commissioner of common schools.

These results were expected due to the large increase in the number of students taking the exam since the establishment of the Academic Challenge Scholarship.

[13] Top high schools receiving recognition from the U.S. News & World Report are spread across the state, including Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, KIPP Delta Collegiate in Helena-West Helena, Bentonville, Rogers, Rogers Heritage, Valley Springs, Searcy, and McCrory.

[24] As an organized territory, and later in the early days of statehood, education was funded by the sales of federally controlled public lands.

We have had over 1,000 acres of land appropriated in this state to purposes of education, but under the management of our public functionaries it has amounted to almost nothing.

The 1868 legislature banned former Confederates and passed a more wide-ranging law detailing funding and administrative issues and allowing black children to attend school.

In furtherance of this, the postwar 1868 state constitution was the first to permit a personal-property tax to fund the lands and buildings for public schools.

[27] In 2014, the state spent $9,616 per student, compared with a national average of about $11,000 putting Arkansas in nineteenth place.