LITTLE ROCK — They live just three miles apart and have similar visions for the Little Rock School District, but for many in the city there is just one aspect that matters: He is black and she is white.
Incumbent Mike Daugherty and challenger Anna Swaim face off in Tuesday's runoff election for the Zone 2 seat on the Little Rock School Board.
The outcome could change alliances on the racially divided board - the four black and three white members frequently vote as blocs - as it hires a new superintendent and decides the direction of desegregation, teacher pay and student achievement programs. The board oversees the 26,000-student district, the state's largest, and a $300 million budget.
Daugherty, who is supported by the teachers union and a group of about 25 ministers who lead churches with predominately black congregations, is one of a four-member majority that removed former Superintendent Roy Brooks and pursued settling an appeal of a desegregation case that the district won early this year.
Swaim, who is backed in part by some of the city's business leaders, says she isn't ready to line up with either side on the board. But she does take the opposite positions from her opponent on the removal of the superintendent and settling the desegregation case.
There are other distinctions - some obvious and some subtle - between the candidates for an undecided voter to consider before Tuesday.
Daugherty, 50, has served on the board since 1995 and is seeking his fifth three-year term. He works for Arkansas Medical Research Testing.
If re-elected, he said, he'll continue to fight unequal opportunities for students and disrespect for parents and teachers.
"When a School Board sits idle and does nothing to prevent these things from happening, that is the greatest injustice of all," he said at a NAACP candidate forum last week. "I have never been that type of School Board member."
Swaim, 38, has served in leadership positions in herchurch, neighborhood association and PTA and is running for the School Board for the first time. She is communications director for the Arkansas Forestry Association.
She has billed herself as a communicator focused on rais-ing student achievement, getting parents more involved and supporting teachers.
"All children come to school with the ability to learn, and we have to have high expectations for our administrators, students, parents and families," she said at last week's forum.
NEXT SUPERINTENDENT
Daugherty's criteria for the next superintendent are ability, stability and community connections.
"Most certainly, you look for someone local, someone with community ties," he said last week. "Someone who knows the Little Rock School District, or at least Arkansas."
Swaim would look for someone who'll be the "face" of the district and have a strong background in educational and political leadership. She would look locally and nationally.
She said last week that she wants "someone who can navigate a community of different populations and not disenfranchise or shut out any one group, but bring people together."
DESEGREGATION AND ACHIEVEMENT GAP
At Daugherty's request, the School Board in July opened the door to settling an appeal of U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr.'s ruling that the district is "unitary" and no longer needs federal court supervision over desegregation programs.
John Walker, an attorney for black students, sent his appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. Before that, he had proposed dropping the appeal in return for certain commitments from the Little Rock district.
Daugherty said last week that he is "sensitive" to Walker's settlement, which proposes better tracking of black students' test scores in order to improve achievement. Daugherty said Walker's proposals will help the district raise achievement before facing state-mandated exams that all 10th-graders will have to pass.
"By the year 2010 we won't have a choice," he said. "Either the students are proficient, or they don't graduate."
Swaim doesn't want to negotiate a settlement with Walker. She said the court has ruled in the district's favor and money should be spent on education, not litigation.
She proposes increasing academic achievement among blacks and poor students by focusing on reading in early grades. She wants to identify struggling students and pair them with the district's most qualified teachers.
She also wants to increase teacher training and collaboration through "professional learning communities."
If the district is eventually declared unitary, some people, including Walker, believe the school system could lose the extra state money that supports magnet schools and studenttransfer programs. The state and Little Rock district have an agreement that the state desegregation funding will continue until 2008, when it will be renegotiated.
Daugherty said last week that it would be difficult to cut the district's budget to find the extra money if the state contribution ends. The district should look tothe state for a permanent source of money to support the desegregation programs. He said the district can't rely on grants or other one-time revenue.
Swaim said there would be enough time before the money dries up to make room in the budget and look for grants.
TEACHER PAY AND HIRING
Last year, Daugherty was part of a 5-2 majority that asked teachers to decide whether to start a districtwide pilot plan that would pay some elementary teachers up to $10,000 in merit pay for increasing student achievement. He said at the time that the teachers should have a say over that proposal. They ultimately rejected it.
Also last year, he voted in favor of expanding the Achievement Challenge employee merit pay program from two to five schools with money from three private groups: the Hussman Foundation, the Brown Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Swaim said she supports the Teacher Advancement Program - a merit pay and professional development program - at Rockefeller and Stephens elementary schools. It is developed by the Milken Family Foundation and provides merit pay for teachers based on student achievement. It also includes teacher training, extra duties for some teachers and a rigorous evaluation of the teacher.
"I have not seen other merit pay programs generate comparable results," Swaim wrote on her campaign Web site. "We needto focus resources on increasing teacher pay across the board."
Daugherty said last week that desegregating schools also means hiring and placing black teachers in classrooms across the district. That starts with administrators, he said.
"If you can't be fair with the teachers, most certainly I don't think you're going to be fair with the students," he said.
Swaim said a qualified, diverse staff starts with qualified, diverse graduates.
"If we start when they are the youngest, we can produce a variety of well-qualified teachers," she said. "That's who we want to hire, the most qualified teachers who can do the best to increase student achievement, no matter what their color or their background."
THE CAMPAIGNS
Every vote is on the line Tuesday and both candidates planned to campaign over the weekend.
Early voting is at the Pulaski County Courthouse from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday. Polls will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Registered voters who live in Zone 2 are eligible to vote in the runoff election even if they did not vote in the Sept. 18 regular election.
In the September election, Daugherty earned 811 votes, and Swaim got 806. The other two candidates pulled in 195 votes combined.
The last time there was a contested race in the zone - 12 years ago - only 631 votes were cast in the runoff.
The zone's 24,000 residentsare 64 percent black, 32 percent white and 2 percent Hispanic, according to a demographic study based on the 2000 U.S. Census.
As has been the case throughout the School Board race, Daugherty has either declined requests for interviews or not returned telephone and e-mail messages to answer questions about his voting record on district issues, his educational background or tax liens.
Daugherty told a reporter on Saturday, before speaking to a majority black crowd at a get-out-the-vote rally, that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has been inaccurate and should check with the state Department of Finance and Administration.
Daugherty has property liens for $95,925.03 in unpaid sales taxes, according to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
Fourteen liens have been filed against his property in Pulaski County Circuit Court between December 2002 and March this year. The unpaid tax amounts range in size from $85.35 to $79,483 from his computer repair business, Faster Than Light Computer Systems. Two of the liens, totaling $1,659.12, have been released. Liens are usually released because they've been paid, said Martha Hunt, chieflegal counsel for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
Daugherty was accused in 1997 by an assistant Little Rock city attorney of "apparent perjury" about holding college degrees. The accusation was sent to the prosecutor's office, but no charges were filed against Daugherty. He has repeatedly refused to discuss his education credentials since then.
On Friday, Daugherty's campaign amended his most recent campaign contribution and expenditure report to accurately reflect his contributions. His previous report said he'd gathered $4,081.73 between Sept. 18 and Oct. 2, but then listed only $1,675 in itemized donations. The amended report said he received $1,675 and had a $1,561.88 balance as of Sept. 29.
Some of his recent contributors include Charity Smith, a state Department of Education associate commissioner for academic accountability; Beverly Divers-White, a former Little Rock district administrator; and Dr. Roosevelt Brown, a Little Rock dentist and husband of Sen. Irma Hunter Brown, DLittle Rock.
Daugherty said last week at the candidate forum that his supporters are friends from Little Rock and around the country who know he will "not back down from the issues and will support Little Rock School District and parents."
Swaim raised $12,350 in the period between Sept. 19 and Sept. 29. All but $600 of the most recent donations were contributions of more than $50.Her largest contributors include Williams & Anderson law firm; Twin City Bank President and Chief Executive Officer Bob Birch; lawyer Scott Trotter; Russell Harrington Jr., president and chief executive officer of Baptist Health; The Janet Jones Co.; John Bailey, manager of Bailey Properties; and Gene Pfeifer, managing partner of Pfeifer Family Limited Partnership.
She also got a $300 donation from Buddy Sutton, the retired chairman and managing partner of the law firm, Friday, Eldredge & Clark. The law firm represents the school district on most legal matters, including the desegregation case.
Sutton said his contribution was a personal donation and not connected with the firm.
Swaim said her campaign financiers understand the "tie between education and economic development." Like her, she said, they want a strong education system in order to make the city "economically viable." Information was contributed by Cynthia Howell and Stacy Hudson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1, 16 on 10/07/2007