LITTLE ROCK — ARNE DUNCAN’S idea about how to improve education across the land-his Race to the Top program-has a lot of merit. One of these days, maybe Arkansas will merit a place in the winner’s circle.
But for now and once again, Arkansas has been left behind. The feds announced Tuesday that 18 states plus the District of Columbia made the cut for Race to the Top funds. Louisiana made it. Kentucky made it. So did Georgia, South Carolina and Arizona.
From California to New Jersey, educators had reason to celebrate. And people who know that education is key to any society’s future had reason to celebrate with them.
But not in Arkansas.
This time the feds have been picky about handing out other people’s money. The secretary of education, his boss, and those who write the checks in Washington have set aside billions of dollars-$4.35 billion, to be exact-for states willing to make real, forward looking changes when it comes to education. Arne Duncan & Co. just aren’t going to hand out billions of tax dollars unless the states competing for it are serious about making progress. What kind of progress? Think charter schools, which need to be freed from the chains that so many states, like Arkansas, put on their expansion. Think merit pay for teachers. (Both of these ideas would seem near and very dear to the hearts of Arne Duncan and the president who appointed him, Barack Obama.)
In the first round of funding back in March, Delaware got $100 million to carry out its plans to (1) turn around the worst performing schools in two years, (2) pay bonuses to teachers and principals who promise to work in the toughest schools, and (3) pay teachers according to student test scores. Sounds like a plan. And a good one.
Tennessee is getting $500 million after its legislature met to overhaul that state’s education laws-and lift the limits on charter schools. But when the states chosen as finalists for the second round of funding were announced Tuesday, there Arkansas wasn’t.
We were close. The team choosing the finalists had developed its own score card by which to judge which states deserved the federal funds. The cut-off point was 400. Arkansas scored 394.4. Close, but not in the money.
The state’s bureaucrats are saying all the right things. Tom Kimbrell, who is Arkansas’ commissioner of education, says that, federal money or no federal money, the state is still going to act on some of the ideas in the plan it submitted. It might take a while longer, and maybe not everything in the plan will get done, but the state won’t shelve the plan. Bravo, Tom Kimbrell.
That’sthe spirit. The state needs more of that spirit. From top to bottom. But the state also needs actions to match it.
SPEAKING of the top, the next time the feds organize another lap of this Race to the Top, it’d be nice to hear from the governor of Arkansas. Specifically, it’d be nice to hear him call a special session of the Legislature to push through reforms in the state’s education laws. Just as Tennessee did. That neighboring state is now handing out, oh, about $500 million to school districts-a nice chunk of change.
Once again, it’s not what Mike Beebe does in office that’s the problem, but what he doesn’t do. When he does do something, it’s usually the right thing.For example, he pays his taxes on a state-supplied car when he should. See his time as attorney general. But is he going to do anything at all about the vast herd of state-supplied cars still roaming the highways-and even the farms of certain elected officials? (See the unending series of exposés that Arkansas’ Newspaper has just published.)
When last heard from about the surfeit of state cars, our current governor was washing his hands of the scandal, noting that many of the cars are owned by state colleges and universities and other agencies he doesn’t control. Nor was he about to cut down on the number of official cars in the branch of government he does head. Or even exercise some moral leadership.
As a leader, Mike Beebe makes a pretty good stand patter. Or at least go-slower. It’s hard to imagine a real shake-’em-up reformer, a governor like Winthrop Rockefeller, say, or even a Mike Huckabee or Dale Bumpers, letting so extravagant an excess continue without even a murmur.
Let it be noted, gratefully, that Mike Beebe did manage to cut the tax on groceries at last, but a third of the regressive thing remains, like a stone on the backs of the poor. And while he didn’t push for the adoption of the state lottery, that sucker’s game, the Guv didn’t push hard against it, either.
Mike Beebe is a quiet leader. Too quiet. Maybe more quiet than leader.
The next time Arne Duncan & Co. call for submissions in this contest-and that’s what Race to the Top is, a competitive contest-maybe the folks in the state’s Department of Education will be able to say Arkansas had a special session and changed this state’s education laws to demonstrate just how much we’re dedicated to reform here. Just as Tennessee did.
Mike Beebe could still be a quiet leader. The pen signing the order calling that special session wouldn’t make all that much noise, would it?
Editorial, Pages 16 on 07/30/2010