Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Education "hot potato" tossed to local districts

It will now be up to individual school districts to decide how to make education equitable under a ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, speaking to a group of about 40 concerned educators, business leaders and others, Thursday, July 10, at the Christus St. Michael Community Room.

He said there is a plan for education and no need to convene a special session this fall. During the regular session, he continued, the legislature's stance was to "wait and see" what happened.

The legislature, he said, wanted to wait for the results of a commissioned survey before making a move during the regular session, which prompted the idea of a special session in the fall.

The state, he said, has four options at this point in dealing with the education situation. They are:

(1) Dumb down the curriculum of the larger districts and not offer advanced classes to students.

"No one is suggesting this," he said. "This wouldn't be smart for Arkansas to do  offer less to students."

(2) Keep the existing system in place and pour money in so all districts can offer the same courses.

The problem with this idea, he said, is it will cost the taxpayers, and the money would also come from those districts currently doing well and offering a rich curriculum.

"It would be the Robin Hood effect," he said. "We'd be taking from the districts doing well and giving to those that aren't."

(3) Do nothing.

By doing nothing, he said, the court would step in and tell the state what to do, while ordering the state to pay for the orders no matter what it cost.

"This is dangerous," he said. "In January lawyers will be lining up to file suit and the state would get the bill."

The example Huckabee gave was if District A didn't offer a specific course and one student wanted to take it, the state would have to find a way to pay a teacher so the district could offer the course to one child.

He pointed out the state once defied a court order. This occurred in 1957, when Gov. Orval Faubus defied a ruling by the court to allow black students to attend Central High School in Little Rock.

"Forty-five years later," he said, "we're still paying for it, and the schools were desegregated."

(4) Create the least avenue of disruption we can to meet the ASC ruling and Congress's No Child Left Behind policy.

Arkansas, he said, is a poor state. The state can't afford to tax its businesses to fund the education system and have the businesses remain in Arkansas. If it did, Arkansas would become another Massachusetts, he added, and businesses would leave the state, going somewhere taxes are less.

In addition, the state's children would be educated for jobs no longer here and have to leave Arkansas to find work.

"We're boxed in," he said. "We must raise the education level of our students or there'll be no jobs or opportunities for them."

Huckabee said there are myths about the plan being worked on. He admitted the plan isn't perfect, adding it has undergone several changes.

First off, he said, the number 1,500 is an arbitrary number and not set in stone. This figure is simply where school districts are more efficient economically, according to studies.

The 1,500 number, he said, means districts can offer a full curriculum for its student body. However, those districts with fewer than 1,500 that can meet the standards will be left alone.

Along with this, he said, the only portions of schools that would be affected would be high schools. Grades K-8 would be left alone because students at this level are taught basic courses. At the high school level, though, students have electives they can take.

The high school level, he said, is where the inefficiency is. It costs more to offer more courses.

In the last five years 1,200 people have graduated colleges in Arkansas with coaching degrees. In the same time period, only one person has received a degree to teach physics. This, too, he said, is part of the problem  people teaching classes they aren't qualified to teach.

Overall, Huckabee said, two thirds of the districts in Arkansas wouldn't be affected, and would continue as they currently are. The other third, he said, could become partner schools.

Partner schools would be able to share courses, with students allowed to take classes where the course is offered. For example, if a student at Blevins wanted to take calculus and the course is offered at Prescott but not Blevins, the student could cross county and district lines to attend the class.

Huckabee said this could also be done with athletics.

The student-teacher ratio in Arkansas is 14:1, whereas in the Southern Regional Education District, composed of southern states, the average is 17:1. By raising the student-teacher population to 17:1, he said, Arkansas would save between $200-$250 million a year and wouldn't have to raise taxes.

If the state raised taxes to garner another $250 million, this money would be used to pay teachers, not meet other needs. To meet all the needs, he said, the state would have to have $1 billion in new tax revenue.

"The clock is ticking. Time is running out," he said. "The deadline is January 1."

Huckabee admitted not having enough votes to get this plan passed by the legislature, which would put the state in a further bind with the court order. He said the legislature's approval isn't needed if the districts handle the problem instead.

Dr. Gene Ross, superintendent of the Emmet School District, asked if districts with fewer than 1,500 students were able to meet the standards would the districts be allowed to spend their money as they see fit.

Huckabee said the Lake View District has 168 students, and if it could meet the standards it would be left alone, as would any other district.

"There is no magic number for success," he said. "Those districts with less than 1,500 students can give it their best shot, but if they don't meet the standards, the state will be forced to come in and take over. We don't want that."

The number 1,500, he said, gives the state a legally defensible position to defend in court when more suits are filed. "No matter what we do, we will be sued."

Huckabee said there will be no limitations on how districts partner with one another to meet the standards. They can cross district and county lines with no problem.

"If you can find a way to cooperate and meet standards, more power to you."

Districts considering becoming partners with one another would have to make plans and submit them to the state board of education. At this point, Huckabee said, more than 30 districts are working on this now.

In addition, the state has some incentive money to help districts with their partnership efforts.