Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Locals speak out on education reform needs

Accountability, better funding, a team effort and less government interference were a few of the suggestions made locally at the Speak Up, Arkansas! event.

The meeting was held Thursday, April 4, in the community room at the Christus St. Michael clinic, with 25 local residents showing up to voice their opinion on what changes need to be made to improve education in the state.

Joy Higdon, from Magnolia, and Judy Dowdy, from Ashdown, acted as moderators for the gathering.

Higdon said she and Dowdy were there to set the tone and guide the meeting.

The concept came from the Arkansas Blue Ribbon Commission, as it considers changes in education and ways to improve schools in the state.

In fact, similar meetings were held simultaneously, one in each of Arkansas's 75 counties. Approximately 100 such gatherings occurred across the state.

A short video about the BRC and Speak Up, Arkansas! was shown before the meeting began.

The video told of the importance of education in the state, and meeting the needs of each and every child in Arkansas.

Learning, it was said, begins before a child starts kindergarten, with parents being a child's first and most influential teacher.

An appropriate curriculum is needed to prepare students for the future.

Arkansas is 45th in the nation in teacher salary, with the state being home to more than 1,100 schools in 310 different districts, and 42 percent of these districts are rural. Arkansas is also 48th in student spending nationally, according to the video.

Dowdy broke the assembly up into three different groups, telling them to discuss the current education problems and possible solutions.

Ron Wright, superintendent of the Prescott School Districts, pointed out the test scores aren't accurate because there is no single test taken nationally by all students.

As each state uses its own standardized test for being evaluated, some states don't ask as much from their students as others, and, therefore, have higher scores.

One such example Wright gave was Texas and Arkansas. He said Arkansas has set the bar higher resulting in lower test scores. Texas, though, uses a standardized test looking for minimum core results and gets higher scores.

Wright favored a single standard test to be used by all districts in the nation to level the playing field.

The groups selected leaders, reporters and timekeepers. The next step was for the group to discuss what they liked and didn't like about schools they attended.

Once this was done, the groups got down to the meat of the business and talked about what's wrong with education and how it can be repaired.

Only the top three suggestions from each group will be sent to the Blue Ribbon Commission, which will review them and, by July 1, come up with ideas to present to the 2003 General Assembly.

There were, however, more than three suggestions made about how education can be improved.

Some of the suggestions included subsidizing pre-school and making all day cares across the state quality ones; no mandates without proper funding; segregating those children who can't be taught into classes which would better suit their abilities; less governmental interference; engage parents in a positive way; make parents feel welcome when visiting classrooms; more discipline in the classroom; teachers being role models for their students; less mandatory testing; people not in education making decisions for education without talking to educators; getting back to the basics of education; smaller class sizes; and more funding for the gifted and talented classes.