Arkansas Scholar’s Learning Project Helps Boost Academic Performance of Elementary, Middle School Students: The diagonal line in Arkansas separating academic and economic strivers from those less likely to make the grade — and then land a decent job — runs roughly from Texarkana in the southwest to Blytheville in northeast. “The wealthiest people live above that line,” said Dr. James Jennings, a history professor and education department chairman at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark.
He had drawn that line in 2006, based on his first-hand and empirical knowledge of parents, students, teachers, schools and the long-haul impact of unabated poverty in the 41 Arkansas counties that are part of the Mississippi Delta, an area below that diagonal line.
