Category Archives: Education

Watch Little Rock school elections because of this

Education, Elections

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

School board elections rarely attract much attention because board members are unpaid (in Arkansas) and nonpartisan, and because they serve a policymaking, oversight role that usually involves deferring to paid staff. Many races don’t even produce a yard sign, much less an attack ad. Voter interest is often low.

The 2020 Little Rock School Board races could be different. And they’re worth watching even if you don’t live in Little Rock.

As you probably know, the Little Rock School District has been under state control since 2015. With a five-year deadline looming, the State Board of Education recently voted to put the district on a path to local control, with school board elections set for next November.

This occurred after the State Board first considered giving the district control over many schools while the state maintained control over the worst ones, which happen to be in areas with high minority populations. Opponents responded with overheated but effective national attention-getting comparisons to Little Rock’s segregationist past. Continue reading Watch Little Rock school elections because of this →

Be more like former UA Trustee David Pryor

Debt and deficits, Education

By Steve Brawner
© 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

We should think less about which tribe political candidates belong to, or where they fall on the left-right spectrum, and more about whether they govern responsibly – like, for example, former University of Arkansas System Trustee David Pryor.

Pryor is best known for being a former governor and senator. He’s a Democrat, for what that’s worth.

This column isn’t about any of that. Instead, it was Pryor who, along with current board member Cliff Gibson, voted in 2016 against a $160 million expansion of Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium to 76,412 seats, including 3,200 new premium seats for rich people. The other eight board members voted yes.

Pryor opposed the project for several reasons. He argued that the university had higher priorities and that it wasn’t the right time to expand the football stadium. A big concern was the fact that the expansion was financed largely by a $120 million bond issue, ultimately backed by the state.

“A bond issue is a debt of the University of Arkansas,” he said in 2016. “It is a debt of the people of Arkansas, and ultimately if something goes wrong, who’s responsible? And that’s the people.”

So what could go wrong? Continue reading Be more like former UA Trustee David Pryor →

Why $659,580 could be really important

Education, Legislature

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansas will spend $2.25 billion in general revenue dollars to educate its 500,000 public school students this year, and all of that money and all of those students could be affected by a $659,580 contract approved by the House and Senate Education Committees.

(Editor’s Note: The Arkansas Legislative Council later did not grant approval of the contract. It is unclear what will happen next.)

As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the legislators voted to pay that amount to a consultant, Denver-based Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, to conduct an educational adequacy study. The contract still must be approved by the Arkansas Legislative Council, a big committee of legislators that meets between legislative sessions. If it gives the OK – which is not certain – then the consultants will dive deeply into Arkansas’ school funding matrix.

This will be the first school adequacy study since those produced by another consultant, Picus Oden & Associates, in 2003 and 2006 helped create the funding matrix. Continue reading Why $659,580 could be really important →

What will NCAA choose to do now

Business and economics, Education

By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

At the Little Rock Touchdown Club Sept. 23, University of Arkansas Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek was asked about a California bill allowing college athletes to profit from endorsements.

He said he’d been told by NCAA attorneys not to comment but said the university invests its revenues in the athletes and that the student-athlete experience is the best it’s ever been. He also said this.

“Being a student-athlete is a voluntary activity. It’s a heck of a commitment, but no one is making you be a student-athlete. No one’s making you put your name on that line and sign that scholarship. That’s something that you do, and you understand when you sign your name … what comes with that and what doesn’t come with that. And so if there’s an opportunity for you to make some money … as a person off your name, image and likeness, right now that’s not as a student-athlete, and so you ought to take that opportunity and go somewhere else with that.”

In other words, the athletes knew the rules and still agreed to play.

But those rules will change, sooner or later. Thanks to California’s law, it’s probably sooner.

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Fair Pay to Play Act, which bars the NCAA from banning participation by California schools whose athletes are compensated for using their name, image or likeness. It takes effect Jan. 1, 2023.

It applies only to California, but the NCAA and other college athletic departments will have no choice but to respond – by suing, of course, and by threatening California with expulsion.

It won’t work, at least not for long. Eventually the NCAA must find a way to share more of its billions with the athletes if it wants to continue existing. After all, if the best college athletes can make money only in California, that’s where they will play.

The NCAA and the college athletic departments want to keep the status quo because they benefit from the rules they wrote. Those rules haven’t changed much even as college sports evolved from an extracurricular activity into a multi-billion-dollar business. Generations of college athletes from poor and minority backgrounds have struggled to make ends meet while the rich old rule-makers made plenty. At one point, the NCAA even made money from video games featuring players’ names and likenesses – again, without compensating the players – until a lawsuit finally ended that. In 2015, the NCAA finally began allowing players to collect small stipends in addition to their scholarships to help pay for incidental expenses. But those are pennies compared to what the rule-makers are paid.

At the highest levels, college athletics is really becoming a farce. Big-time programs exist alongside rather than as a part of their universities. Coaches’ salaries dwarf the universities’ presidents’. It’s “amateur athletics,” but only the athletes aren’t being compensated – legally, anyway, because the system encourages under-the-table payments.

The status quo is most unfair to football players. The best 18-year-old basketball players can play in the NBA or overseas. The best 18-year-old baseball players can go straight to the minor leagues. But the best 18-year-old football players must go to college if they want to keep playing.

In signing the bill into law, Newsom said he knows it will have consequences, and the state wants to “engage” the NCAA. In other words, the NCAA had better make a counteroffer before Jan. 1, 2023. He pointed out that only athletic governing bodies can keep students from making money off their name and likeness. If you’re a student with another skill, the free market still applies.

Yes, college sports is a voluntary activity, but so is almost any adult endeavor. No one “makes” you work for a factory or a newspaper. That doesn’t give a powerful entity the right to act like the standards that apply to the rest of society don’t apply to it.

Perhaps this could have been avoided had the NCAA voluntarily shared revenues with athletes more equitably.

Or maybe this was inevitable. This America. If you own anything, it’s your name and likeness.

Regardless, the rules are changing. Soon it will be the NCAA that must adapt if it wants to keep playing.