By Andrew DeMillo | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, Advocate readers! Arkansas’ governor and top education officials are touting the latest performance grades for the state’s public schools. The percentage of schools receiving failing or low grades has decreased. And billionaire Alice Walton is continuing to make her mark on Walmart’s hometown with a new healthcare campus that just broke ground. You can find more Arkansas government and politics news on the Advocate site here.
From left: Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders tout the improvements in public school students’ test scores at a press conference at the Arkansas Capitol on June 18, 2026. (Photo by Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Ainsley Platt
The percentage of Arkansas schools and districts receiving failing or low grades from the state for their performance has decreased, according to data released by the state Department of Education Thursday.
(Photo by Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Antoinette Grajeda
A new Bentonville healthcare campus backed by billionaire philanthropist Alice Walton will increase Arkansans’ access to specialty care and a “whole person” approach to medicine, she said at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.
A combine harvests soybeans in Phillips County, Arkansas, in this undated photo. (Photo by Robert Goodson/U of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture)
COMMENTARY
By The Conversation
As an environmental historian who studies agriculture and food, I seek to understand a peculiar transformation: How did a plant that most Americans barely ate a century ago become a ubiquitous food ingredient without people noticing?
MORE NEWS
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