When are the schools in Little Rock going to catch a break? The state has taken control of the school district because so many schools are what the educantists call Academically Distressed, which means they haven't been educating the kids. And on the rare occasion that a brave superintendent comes along to improve things, he's run out of town.
Remember a superintendent of Little Rock's schools by the name of Roy Brooks? On taking the job not that long ago, he vowed to make Little Rock's school district into the best, highest-achieving urban school district in the country. He just had to be sent packing by the entrenched bureaucracy. And was. Change education in Little Rock for the better? No matter what it might mean to unions and deadwood? The nerve.
How many superintendents or interim superintendents has Little Rock's school district had since 1980? Is it really in the 20s by now? That's no way to run a railroad--or school district. The best superintendents seem to be run off quickly enough, the worst done in by their own records.
Now the state's largest school district has lost Dexter Suggs, too, barely on the job two years.
The accusations against him had to do with a college dissertation and plagiarism, uncovered by a bulldog of a blogger who's uncovered worse among public officials before. But this superintendent has been in the crosshairs since he got to Little Rock--and before the school board was disbanded, he had to fend off attempts to keep him in line time and again. That is, keep him from making too many changes that would upset the time-servers and administrators and apparatchiks who somehow find a spot in the education bureaucracy and draw a paycheck till retirement.
Dr. Suggs' loss is lamentable. The school district seemed to finally be going in the right direction.
Remember the problems at Forest Heights Middle School--specifically, the low test scores of the kids there? Dexter Suggs managed to convert that low-performing middle school into a STEM academy. That is, a school teaching a full science, technology, engineering and math curriculum.
Once upon a time, Geyer Springs Elementary was considered a Priority school, more educanto for failing the students. Its scores on the Benchmark Exam were among the lowest five percent in the state. Last year, Dr. Suggs converted it into a Gifted and Talented school. The results? Like much of what Dexter Suggs has done, it's too early to tell.
The central offices for Little Rock's schools, packed with people, needed to be brought down to acceptable levels. Dr. Suggs was in the process of doing just that. Which, again, made him few friends in the bureaucracy.
But even more than all of that, Dr. Suggs seemed to be brave. He was courageous enough to take on his own school board when the needs of the students demanded it. At a public meeting before the state's Board of Education last year, he told everyone present--even with reporters sitting right there, pen in hand--that exactly one (1) teacher had been successfully fired for poor performance in 20 years. That the school district lacked "true grit to do what needs to be done" to change the culture there. That the district had grown from 2,600 employees in 1997 to about 3,900 in 2014. Oh, how many red faces do you think sat in the audience that day?
Now he's gone. Resigned. And the kids in Little Rock's schools have lost another superintendent who looked out for them first, second and last.
If there's any good news, any at all, it's that almost anybody can be replaced. Our hope is that the state's education commissioner, Johnny Key, can find somebody like Dexter Suggs, who can take over pronto, and keep the district on the right course. That is, Dexter Suggs' course.
For the students in Little Rock's schools, that can't be too much to ask.
Editorial on 04/24/2015