School-rally crowd hears call for ‘new’

Florida’s Bush urges swift education changes in state


Jim Walton, CEO of Arvest Bank Group, left, greets former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush before Bush addressed a crowd during the A+ Arkansas Education Rally Tuesday morning in the rotunda at the State Capitol in Little Rock.
Jim Walton, CEO of Arvest Bank Group, left, greets former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush before Bush addressed a crowd during the A+ Arkansas Education Rally Tuesday morning in the rotunda at the State Capitol in Little Rock.

— Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush joined charter-school supporters at the Capitol rotunda Tuesday morning before a meeting with business leaders and community advocates about creating more school-choice options.

Children and adult advocates wore yellow shirts and waved signs with slogans such as “I yearn to learn” while listening to Bush.

“Our children can’t wait for plodding, incremental change. We need disruptive change, we need to invest in new ideas, new approaches in education and that means creating more options for parents, more competition in schools,” Bush said at an event organized by A+ Arkansas, a coalition that supports expanded school options. “Public monopolies operate for the adults in the system and not for the kids.”

Bush called improving education the civil-rights and “economic issue of our time.”

“Fifty years after the Little Rock Nine our most disadvantaged kids are the ones least likely to receive a quality education and they are the ones who need it the most,” Bush said. “Without an equal education there is no such thing as equality.”

Lawmakers are expected to consider changes to charter schools and other school options during the 2013 legislative session.

House Bill 1040 by Rep. Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, would create a five-member charter-school commission to review, authorize and monitor contracts of all public charter schools.

The governor, Senate president pro tempore, House speaker, the chairman of theHouse Education Committee and the chairman of the Senate Education Committee would appoint one member each to the commission.

The governor appoints the nine-member state Board of Education, which has authority for charter schools.

SCHOOL-CHOICE PANELS

On Tuesday afternoon, the A+ Arkansas group hosted an “Education Summit” at the Doubletree Hotel that featured business leaders, lawmakers, educators and parent and community organizers. Participants spoke largely in support of charter schools and other forms of school choice.

William Dillard III, vice president of Dillard’s Inc., told the crowd of about 450 people that part of his job is to get people to move to Arkansas, and education is a primary factor that families consider.

“Honestly, we’re deficient in that regard and I have to work around that,” he said, adding that competition in education is beneficial, just as competition is good in any endeavor.

“If there is competition among schools for kids, guess who wins? Kids and parents,” he said. “This is a justice issue, particularly for these kids being failed by their existing schools. It is inherently unfair and wrong for every kid in America not to have a chance - if they apply themselves and if they try - to get ahead, and right now that is not happening.”

Patrick Wolf, professor and 21st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, evaluates school choice and voucher programs and concluded both have value.

“We know that public charter schools deliver better educational outcomes for children under some very important conditions - so long as they are not brandnew schools,” he said.

New charters struggle, but three to five years into their operation “they’re clearly producing better outcomes for kids. That’s particularlythe case for highly disadvantaged kids and for kids living in urban environments where there are large concentrations of charter schools and parents have a lot of choices and can pick one best for their child.

Wolf called private- and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private school tuition, “a lifeline” for parents of disadvantaged urban students. Vouchers enable parents to send their children to already established, market-tested schools, he said.

Walter E. Hussman, Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and chief executive officer of WEHCO Media Co., described efforts to open the three eStem Public Charter Schools in downtown Little Rock.

“EStem was created to serve lower-income minority kids,” he said. “One problem we have in Little Rock is that we have a lot of minority kids that want to get into magnet schools but they can’t get into magnet schools because there is a racial quota. We wanted to try to provide educational opportunities.”

The 1,400-student schools now have 4,300 on waiting lists, he said.

“This just shows the demand for quality education,” Hussman said. “This shows why we need more schools like eStem and why eStem should maybe be able to set up another campus.”

T. Willard Fair, chief executive officer of the Urban League of Greater Miami Inc., and Georgia state Rep. Alisha Morgan offered some of the strongest advice.

Fair, who is black, said his work with Bush in Florida was key to the success of initiatives there. Fair was critical of black Arkansas lawmakers who attended Tuesday’s luncheon but left before the panel discussion.

“It’s disturbing to me. You can’t talk about a movement that has the power to move things like this movement will move things if everybody is not involved,” Fair said. “It is insulting,” he said of what he saw as a refusal to participate. “It sends the wrong message to the children,” he said.

Morgan, a Democrat, who is also black, advised the participants Tuesday to make the development of school options a bipartisan effort and not one dominated by Republicans. She urged that the members of both partiesbe involved in the crafting of legislation.

Jim Walton, chairman and chief executive officer of Arvest Bank Group Inc. and Luke Gordy, executive director of Arkansans for Educational Reform Foundation, spoke in support of a new charter commission.

Walton said a commission devoted solely to charter schools would be more knowledgeable about what works. The state Board of Education could concentrate on low-performing schools, he said.

Gordy said that the purpose of the new commission would not be to rubberstamp. Failure to approve high-quality charter schools would hurt the charterschool movement, he said.

CAPITOL DEBATE

Biviano has said the state Board of Education has been slow to consider some charter-school applications and has denied some that should have been approved. Biviano said Tuesday’s events with a keynote speaker like Bush should help his effort. But House Education Chairman James McLean, D-Batesville, said there are problems keeping Biviano’s bill from moving forward.

“A lot of school board folks have some concerns with it, some educators have concerns, superintendents. I think he’s trying to address those before he brings it to us,” McLean said. “Two competing boards at the Department of Education: I don’t know if that’s really a positive development.”

He said the state board has done a good job with charter schools and thinks concernsshould be worked out with that board.

Biviano said he is working to educate members about what the charter board would do.

Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, opposes the bill.

Today several education and community groups calling themselves the Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign will hold a news conference at the Capitol about supporting traditional public education.

“We view the agenda of the A+ group as pretty extreme,” said Bill Kopsky, executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel. “We just view this as a distraction. They’re interested in this radical ideology which we just don’t think matches Arkansas. We’re not anticharter school at all. What we are for is high-achieving public schools.”

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/30/2013

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