Editorial

It's taken long enough

Public schools finally join the real world

It's taken years, but finally, finally, finally . . . parents in Arkansas are getting the real story about their public schools. And getting some real options about how to deal with it.

For the first time, the state is identifying schools that aren't performing well--not well at all. And identifying individual schools, not just school districts. Which had its drawbacks. Because if only district-wide averages on standardized tests are released, a great public school in one part of town can cover up for the failing school in another. And innocent parents might never suspect what's really going on with the school where they're sending little Johnny or Janey.

But now--Hooray!--parents don't have to guess (or assume) which schools aren't cutting it. The state now tells them. And has told them. Just look at Friday's edition of Arkansas' Newspaper--on Page One.

Has it really taken till 2014 for an approach so simple, so specific, so fair and so obviously needed for so long to become reality? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

The good news is that the day may finally be here, and so the future of public education in this state looks bright. Or at least brighter.

The current euphemism for a school that's failing its students is, ahem, distressed. As if not learning in school were just a matter of being strained, uncomfortable, under stress . . . . And could be fixed by turning the AC down a few notches.

But today we come to praise the educational bureaucracy, not to bug it about its jargon. So let's start:

Last week, the state Board of Education singled out 26 schools in Arkansas as academically distressed. And this ain't beanbag. The designation carries sanctions. Real ones. Ones that can--and should--be driven home.

In order to be labeled Distressed, a school has to be not just failing its students, but failing them miserably. Meaning fewer than half the students in those schools score Proficient in standardized tests. Parents with kids in those schools can now transfer them to other, better schools. This year. As in for the school year starting in a matter of weeks.

And since the state's money follows the state's kids, the schools losing those kids will also lose the money that goes with them. That ought to get those school administrators' attention. Being given less money usually does. Real quick. Which is what being sanctioned by the state Board of Education comes down to. And it hurts. Right in the pocketbook.

Want more? How's this: The schools labeled Distressed have five years to make the grade(s) or the state can step in and re-organize those schools, remove principals or even superintendents, or put the deficient school in a whole other school district where some new blood at central office might have a salutary effect. Or simply shut down the poor-performing school altogether.

But all that could be years down the line. Today the new rules mean kids that transfer out of failing schools get a shot at a better education, which means a shot at a better life.

Think of it this way: A restaurant that served awful food wouldn't stay open long. A newspaper that didn't serve its readers wouldn't last. How did it become custom, even standard operating procedure, for even the worst schools to keep miseducating our children? And all unbeknownst to their students and to the families who entrust their kids to those failing schools in good faith.

Imagine what the future might look like if failing schools in Arkansas just . . . disappeared. Dried up. Went away. And as failing schools and school districts disappeared, and as better ones absorbed the kids from other schools and school districts, as more parents were allowed to send their kids to the kinds of schools that do work, and educators who can't teach are shown the door, at least the ones who are walking menaces to the next generation . . . .

If all that began to happen, just imagine what the public schools would be like in Arkansas: a lot better.

The new rules are a welcome step in that direction.

Calling 2019. Some of us can't wait to see what the next five years will bring.

At least for most of Arkansas. Because there's always a catch to even the best news, isn't there? Here's today's Catch 22:

More than 20 school districts in Arkansas have claimed exemptions to the new rules. (The list can be found at arkansased.org.)

Some of the school boards claim they have no choice in the matter, important as it is to a child's future. Because they're under a court order that requires them to desegregate, and letting these families choose the schools they want their kids to attend would violate that court order.

Whether those court orders really do conflict with the new rules that give parents a choice is an iffy question. All we know for sure is that any excuse will do for some districts to hold on to every penny of state money. So those old court orders, first used to get students into better schools, may now be used to keep them in the worst. And those students affected surely include a lot of black kids--whose opportunity for an equal education was the rationale for those court orders to begin with.

The moral of this story: Using decades-old desegregation rulings to cripple the very children those orders were originally designed to help is . . . .

Shameful.

It may also prove tragic. Unless these kids can find a way to get out of these failing schools before failing becomes a habit in their lives.

Editorial on 07/17/2014

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