Category Archives: Education

Schools: Local control without local voters?

Education, Elections, Politics, State government

Education Commissioner Johnny Key, left, and Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus speak to reporters after Key did not renew Kurrus' contract. Because of the state takeover of the LRSD, Key, who entered office after the takeover, effectively serves as the district's school board.
Education Commissioner Johnny Key, left, and Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus speak to reporters after Key did not renew Kurrus’ contract. Because of the state takeover of the LRSD, Key, who entered office after the takeover, effectively serves as the district’s school board.
By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

There’s a lot of talk in Little Rock about ending the state takeover of the school district and returning it to local control. If that’s to happen, these numbers must be improved: 2.78; .71; 4.51; and .51.

Those are the percentages of registered voters who voted in school elections in Pulaski County from 2014 back to 2011.

To be fair, those numbers encompass the entire county, not just Little Rock, and reflect elections where at most two of the seven positions were contested.

Still, the last time Little Rock held competitive school elections, a city with a population of 200,000 elected one school board member with 485 votes, and another with 379.

With that kind of turnout, a school election can be decided by one active civic club, business organization, union – or just a small group with an axe to grind.

One wonders how significant these public demonstrations about the school district really are. Did these people vote in those elections as the district was nearing a state takeover, or have they been newly energized? And are there enough of them to matter once the district is returned to local control?

It’s probably harder to engage voters in a school election in a big city than it is in a town of 8,000, where candidates know a lot of the voters personally. Many of Little Rock’s voters are completely disconnected from their school district. Most everything west of I-430 is Privateschoolville.

But extremely low voter turnout is a problem in many school districts. A decent minority of voters go to the polls if they are asked to decide a school millage increase, but school board elections attract little attention. A few years ago, I interviewed a Fayetteville School Board member who lamented that he had recently been re-elected by a count of 115-113 in a zone with 8,000 voters.

Why such low turnouts? School elections occur in September, when no one else is on the ballot. Unlike in some states, school board members aren’t paid for their service, so they have no financial incentive to invest seed money in their campaigns or advertise much. They don’t run with party labels and don’t attract big donations, yet.

Each legislative session, a lawmaker runs a bill to try to move school elections to November. Last year a bill passed that made November elections a voluntary option for districts. No doubt lawmakers will try to make it mandatory in 2017, or at least move the elections to the party primaries in the spring.

School board members don’t want to run on those crowded ballots. They’re afraid they’ll get lost in the shuffle, leaving school policies dependent on the decisions of voters guessing among a list of unfamiliar names. They’re afraid their positions will become politicized. They don’t want to run as Republicans or Democrats, or make the kind of campaign promises other elected officials make.

I must disclose that I publish a magazine, Report Card, in partnership with the Arkansas School Boards Association. It’s entirely supported by ads that I sell. ASBA doesn’t pay me for it, although I am paid a fee for one small project I do every year.

That relationship has probably helped bias me against moving school elections to November – that and the fact that the ballot is already too crowded then. Why am I voting on the county coroner? At the same time, the turnout issue should become a higher priority for everyone.

If Donald Trump has shown us anything, it’s that you don’t have to have a big organization or even spend that much money to win an election. He’s won the Republican Party’s nomination through his skillful use of the media and Twitter, all of which is free. That doesn’t mean school board members should campaign like Trump, but surely local media outlets could more aggressively cover the candidates, while candidates could make better use of Facebook.

Citizens must play their part, too. September comes every year, and it should not be a surprise that school elections occur then. School districts are many communities’ largest employer and, more importantly, the entity that educates and takes care of children all day. It matters who makes policy there.

A democracy doesn’t require massive voter turnout, but surely it must do better than 1 percent. After all, can you have local control without local voters?

Related: Why did Key replace Kurrus?

Why did Key replace Kurrus?

Education, Politics, State government, Uncategorized
Johnny Key, left, and Baker Kurrus speak to reporters Tuesday.
Johnny Key, left, and Baker Kurrus speak to reporters Tuesday.

By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Reporters have biases, and I’ll admit to mine: Two of the government officials I like the most are Johnny Key, the state’s education commissioner, and Baker Kurrus, the soon-to-be-former Little Rock School District superintendent.

The two have been linked together for the past year. Key is a former state senator, not an educator, which a lot of unhappy people noted when Gov. Asa Hutchinson picked him for the state’s leading public schools post. Because the State Board of Education had taken over the Little Rock School District, Key became its de facto school board when he became commissioner, and he appointed Kurrus as superintendent.

Kurrus is also not an educator – which, again, a lot of unhappy people noted when Key appointed him – though he had served for a while on the Little Rock School Board. He’s an attorney and a businessman, as well as a competent, passionate, driven individual. He went to work organizing things, talking to people, and showing that he cared. He brought hope, and people warmed up to him.

Earlier this month, Key decided not to renew Kurrus’ one-year contract, which clearly disappointed and surprised Kurrus. His replacement is Mike Poore, who currently is superintendent of the Bentonville School District and led a large, urban district out of academic trouble when he was working in Colorado.

In an interview in his office Tuesday, Key said the Kurrus hiring was always supposed to be temporary, though “temporary” was never defined. He said that while the state took over the district because of academics, there were fiscal and foundational problems that needed to be addressed first, and Kurrus was uniquely able to do that because of his organizational skills.

Key’s decision surprised and angered a lot of people and put the governor in a tough spot with some of the Little Rock legislators.

I also was surprised. I watched Key as a well-liked legislator carefully, even unnecessarily, build a coalition to pass a school choice plan.

How could such an accomplished bridge builder act so arbitrarily? In a press conference with Kurrus last Tuesday and during the interview the following Tuesday, Key explained that Kurrus had accomplished his mission of righting the ship, but now it’s time to focus on the academic distress that caused the state takeover in the first place. Poore has experience that Kurrus lacks. In between on Friday afternoon, Key issued a statement admitting he had erred in how he went about making the change.

In our interview, Key explained this is the time of year when superintendents are replaced. Little Rock has five years to get out of academic distress, and one of those years is gone. He didn’t want to wait another year and believes Poore is better suited to move Little Rock out of, and well past, academic distress.

“The broader issue was, Baker’s got us where we need to be right now. Who can come in and take us to that next level?” he said.

Some people aren’t buying it. They’re saying this is about the two men disagreeing about charter schools, which, in some cases, involve a private entity operating a school funded with taxpayer dollars. In Little Rock, two of these in particular are popular: eStem and the LISA Academy. Kurrus has publicly worried those schools will take students from the Little Rock School District, further disadvantaging it. Key tends to believe competition makes schools better, as do certain school reform types such as the Walton Family Foundation.

Some are saying that Kurrus publicly questioned charter schools, but Key and his big business overlords like charter schools, so Kurrus was shown the door. Everything has to be a conspiracy these days.

Key told me in his office that the two did disagree about charter schools, but it was not a “determining factor” and that the charter disagreement was a “minimal” consideration. When I pressed him on what “minimal” meant, he held his thumb and pointer finger an inch apart and repeated that it wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Poore had the skill set he wanted.

Remember, I’m biased towards Key and Kurrus. It’s possible that Key was spinning me, of course. But if he were, I would think he would have said “none” instead of “minimal.”

Key said it was time for an academic type to fix a school district in academic distress. That part is easy to understand, even if suddenly replacing a man who was succeeding isn’t.

In West Memphis, it’s all connected

Business, Business and economics, Education

Junior Jeremy Paige is learning to become an aircraft mechanic, while senior Summer Abram plans to use the skills she learned in high school as a diesel mechanic to pay her way through school as she becomes a psychologist.
Junior Jeremy Paige is learning to become an aircraft mechanic, while senior Summer Abram plans to use the skills she learned in high school as a diesel mechanic to pay her way through school as she becomes a psychologist.
By Steve Brawner
© 2016 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The late Lt. Governor Win Rockefeller used to say that the education system is like a string of water pipes laid end to end but not connected. In West Memphis, they’re connected.

The high school, known as the Academies at West Memphis, has a conversion charter, which is an arrangement with the Arkansas Department of Education where some of the usual rules don’t apply and the school can experiment and innovate.

Students there choose pathways that prepare them for a career and then can spend up to six of their eight high school periods a day at Arkansas State University Mid-South, the local community college 1.3 miles down the road. In fact, it’s possible for a 10th-grader, on the first day of school, to get on the bus and sit in a college class before ever sitting through a high school one.

High school students can take tuition-free, for-credit college classes at ASU Mid-South thanks to the Thomas Goldsby Scholarship, funded by a local oilman. If they’re dedicated enough, they can receive a college associate’s degree on the same stage where their receive their high school diploma. Then, because of ASU Mid-South’s connection with the ASU system and with various other four-year schools, they can further their education and receive a bachelor’s degree, even a master’s, on that same college campus.

In effect, West Memphis has become a college town without the state having to build a huge campus with dorms and a football stadium.

Most students who make the eight-minute bus ride from the high school to the community college aren’t seeking a college degree. Instead, they’re taking career-oriented classes in a variety of fields. For example, five high school students earned welding certifications last year and then after graduating went to work at TrinityRail Maintenance Services in Jonesboro earning about $18 an hour.

Perhaps the most interesting connection in West Memphis is the aircraft mechanics program shared by the high school, the college and FedEx, the Memphis-based package deliverer founded by Arkansas native Fred Smith. The company has invested $250,000 at ASU Mid-South to build a new FedEx Aviation Technology Center, which when completed this year will include aircraft hangar space and classrooms. It even donated a Boeing 727 plane whose shell is sitting on the college campus after being disassembled and transported by a Stuttgart company.

This means that, as part of his high school education, junior Jeremy Paige is learning to maintain a jet airplane. This time next year, he’ll be crawling around the plane as he earns his certification in airframe mechanics – the aircraft’s structure. After he graduates high school, he’ll further his education at ASU Mid-South and earn his certification in powerplant mechanics – the engine. With those two certifications, he can go to work for FedEx and make a six-figure income.

Meanwhile, senior Summer Abram is learning to be a FedEx diesel mechanic. She won’t make the same kind of money as Paige, but she has different long-term goals: Work while taking college courses and playing basketball at ASU Mid-South and studying to become a psychologist. If it all works out, she’ll be making a living at FedEx while in school instead of piling up student debt.

Is there a downside? Long term, perhaps there’s a danger that the pipeline will become too connected – that the system could just funnel students straight from school to their corporate sponsors’ workforce.

Of course, those sponsors are offering up to six-figure opportunities. Moreover, under this model, students have many choices other than a simple high school diploma, which is worth less than it used to be. As Dr. Glen Fenter, who was ASU Mid-South’s chancellor when all these deals were made, said, “The most powerful model for combatting the lingering vestiges of poverty in this country is to speed up the educational process, particularly for poor students.” Get them ready to earn a paycheck in a good job, he said, and then they can always travel different pathways from there.

How to do that? In West Memphis, they’re connecting high school to college and career opportunities, using a 1.3-mile pipeline and, for some, a jet airplane.

For more stories about how Arkansas schools are using innovative techniques to teach students, check out:

Goals, not grades, are the focus at Warren.

A marvelous day in a Marvell school.

No Child in Flippin left behind.

Arkansas heads to front of coding class

Education, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

During the 2014 campaign, when Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s main talking point on education was teaching computer coding in schools, I thought he was playing it small.

He did have a great commercial with his granddaughter. But the big, controversial issues in education are school funding, the Common Core, testing, charter schools – not whether or not students should take a computer class.

Sometimes, small is big. As a result of legislation passed earlier this year, all public high schools in Arkansas are required to offer a computer coding class. This semester, almost 4,000 students are learning to “speak the language of the computer in order to tell the computer what to do,” as Hutchinson described to school board members Dec. 11. Arkansas students have been participating in more than 850 “Hour of Code” events, including one at the Governor’s Mansion last week, where they play around on a computer to get a feel for coding. Bentonville Superintendent Mike Poore told Hutchinson at that school board conference that one of his students, ranked 800th in a class of 1,000 academically, has learned eight computer languages this semester and will have a $50,000-a-year job waiting on him when he graduates – high school, not college.

Arkansas is the first state to require high schools to offer a coding class, and some have noticed. The influential “Wired” magazine ran an online story headlined, “So, Arkansas is leading the learn to code movement.” Hutchinson – who can’t personally code himself out of a paper bag – appeared on CNBC this summer to talk about the program.

The legislation applies only to high schools. On Dec. 4, Hutchinson announced that the Department of Education is developing computer education standards for grades K-8. Those standards would go into effect in the 2017-18 school year. Again, Arkansas would be the first state to do this.

The result of all this could be that Arkansas produces the next Bill Gates. Even if not, then at least a lot of students will be prepared for those well-paying jobs. Some no doubt will take advantage of opportunities offered elsewhere. But as Hutchinson explained Dec. 4, he noticed when visiting Silicon Valley in California, the nation’s tech industry home, the sky-high benefits companies were offering in order to attract talent. Companies will realize their costs will be lower here, leading Arkansas to become a “microhub” for the tech industry.

Even if students don’t go into coding, they’ll have a better understanding of an integral part of American life. Just as a law degree can be useful even if you don’t become a lawyer, coding skills can be useful elsewhere. If you own or manage a business, you may not code – but you’ll likely hire or contract with someone who does.

One more benefit to coding is what it does for the students while they are still in school. A generation of students raised to use computers – or often, just play with them and passively be entertained by them – is instead learning to actively program them. When you and I were in school, the end result of most learning was to answer a test question correctly. For a student in a coding class, the end result is taking charge of a computer and making it do something new. How cool is that?

Challenges? One is getting female students involved. Anthony Owen, Department of Education coordinator of computer science, said current enrollment in computer coding courses is about 74 percent male. The event at the Governor’s Mansion was targeted to girls.

The big challenge has been finding teachers, because few of them know how to code. In many high schools, students are learning the skill through the state’s online Arkansas Virtual Academy while an untrained teacher facilitator in the classroom offers whatever help they can. Kids can learn this way, but it would be better for a local classroom teacher to lead the class. The state has provided $5 million in grants for teachers to be trained in the skill. The faster that money is spent, the better.

Might some of those teachers use that training to leave the profession and become coders themselves? Probably, but every industry deals with that issue. As young thinker Max Farrell once told me, “The CEO says, ‘Why are we training all these people if they ultimately wind up leaving?’ And the vice president says to the CEO, ‘Well, what if we don’t train them and they stay?’”

Same applies to students, doesn’t it?