The Forward Arkansas initiative to develop a plan for improving student achievement, particularly in the state's most academically troubled public schools, will conduct focus-group discussions this week in the Little Rock School District.
District leaders invited what they said are diverse, representative groups of teachers, administrators, students and parents to share opinions and ideas and to respond to questions from Forward Arkansas at the sessions set for Tuesday.
Forward Arkansas is a collaboration for school improvement formed late last year by the Arkansas Board of Education, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation of Little Rock and the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville. The initiative has appointed a 28-member steering committee of Arkansans and hired the Boston Consulting Group to develop recommendations for what leaders say they hope will push the state's schools to be among the best in the nation.
The improvement plan is expected to be completed in late spring or early summer.
The announcement of the Little Rock focus groups comes shortly after the state Board of Education's Jan. 28 vote to take over the Little Rock School District, dismissing the School Board and putting the superintendent under the direction of the state education commissioner.
Some former School Board members, their supporters and others in the community have questioned whether initiative backers intend to privatize or convert some of the Little Rock schools into independently run charter schools.
Jared Henderson, project manager for the initiative, discounted concerns that the recommendations that will be included in the strategic plan are a foregone conclusion.
He said last week that the advice generated by more than 30 planned focus groups in Little Rock and in other parts of the state "is absolutely crucial, just an essential ingredient, to what will allow us to make real recommendations that will ultimately help us help kids in the state."
Other focus group locations include Carlisle, Earle, Marianna, Pine Bluff, Springdale, Strong, Waldo and Valley Springs, he said.
Henderson also pointed to the members of the steering committee, some of whom are prominent and who have publicly stated differing opinions about school reform in Little Rock and across the state.
State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D- Little Rock, former Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon, outgoing Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Shane Broadway and former Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell are some of the steering committee members. Still others are business people, former school board members, parent leaders and community organizers.
"I think it would have been impossible to build the coalition of citizens that are represented there if there was a pre-made plan," Henderson said. "They wouldn't have agreed to join if there is a pre-made plan. And they will certainly tell people later if they find out there is a pre-made plan -- which there is not."
"Our goal is to produce a plan that everyone on the steering committee will sign their name to," he added. "Not that everyone will agree to every part, but when they look at the totality of it, they will say, 'I am proud I was a member of Forward Arkansas, and I will continue to call myself a member of Forward Arkansas.' To reach that goal, we'll have to demonstrate integrity and honesty throughout the whole process."
Former Little Rock School Board member Jim Ross, one of the critics of the planning effort, said last week that the Boston Consulting Group "produces the same 150-page report ... with the same recommendation in it, every place they go."
Ross said he anticipates working with a loose group of his supporters and others to write a "counter report" that will have "the real voices of real citizens and real teachers, and not the preconceived notions of a multibillion-dollar corporation" -- a reference to the Walton Family Foundation that is associated with Wal-Mart.
Dennis Glasgow, the Little Rock district's associate superintendent for accountability, identified administrators for one of the focus groups and worked with Little Rock Education Association President Cathy Koehler to produce a widely diverse group of teachers for another focus group. Other district leaders put together the parent and student groups.
Ensuring diversity, ethnicity, gender, experience and subject-area expertise was among the factors considered, Glasgow said.
The administrators invited to participate are: Ericka McCarroll, principal at Bale Elementary; Katherine Snyder, principal at Washington Elementary; Frank Williams, principal at Henderson Middle School; Steven Wise, assistant principal at Pulaski Heights Middle; Jamie Kuhn, counselor at Williams Magnet Elementary; Laureen Isom, director of counseling; Veronica Perkins, chief academic officer; Suzi Davis, director of secondary literacy; Karen James, director of elementary literacy; and Vanessa Cleaver, director of mathematics.
In selecting teachers, Koehler said, years of teaching experience were taken into consideration, and an effort was made to select representatives from the four quadrants of the city.
"I think you have strong practitioners from top to bottom," Koehler said about the teachers invited to participate.
Those are Jennifer Croft of McDermott Elementary, Marilyn James of Baseline Elementary, Nathalie Massanelli of Jefferson Elementary, Kristy Mosby of Booker Magnet Elementary, Paula Harris of Horace Mann Magnet Middle School, Lupe Pena of the district's English as a Second Language office who spends a lot of time at Cloverdale Middle School, Mario Tims of Forest Heights STEM Academy, Colton Gilbert of Hall High, Lauren McKay of J.A. Fair High and Cassandra Stauder from Central High who previously worked at McClellan High.
The focus groups are scheduled to meet Tuesday at the district's administration office.
Henderson, the Forward Arkansas project manager, said it is up to the school district to decide whether the focus-group meetings will be open to nonparticipating observers.
Henderson said the focus groups are one component in the effort to develop the strategic plan for improving student achievement throughout the state.
Another component is an online survey on public education that is available through the end of this month to students and adults who wish to weigh in on the issue. The survey is on the organization's website: forwardarkansas.org.
Still another component is the working groups made up of members of the initiative's overall 28-member steering committee, plus others with expertise in different education facets.
The working groups -- of which there are now seven-- are targeting the topics of classroom instruction, the pipeline to teaching, access to pre-kindergarten programs, effective school leadership, supporting students outside the classroom, turning around academically distressed schools, and the systems and policies needed to accomplish the successful implementation of initiative recommendations.
Feeding in to the work of the working groups will be the results of the focus-group discussions.
The focus groups will be asked what they think "is holding us back" in terms of achievement and "what it will take to unlock our potential," he said. "They might also say, 'Hey, did you know what is working here that needs to get more attention and more resources?'"
Henderson said the Little Rock focus groups were planned before the state Board of Education's Jan. 28 vote to take control of the Little Rock district by dismissing the elected school board and making Dexter Suggs the interim superintendent, answerable to Education Commissioner Tony Wood.
The decision to take control of the district was based in large part on the fact that the district has six schools classified as academically distressed, meaning that fewer than half of their students scored at proficient levels on state math and literacy exams over a three-year period.
The six schools are Baseline Elementary; Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools; and J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools. They are among 26 academically distressed schools statewide.
Henderson said the Education Board's takeover vote and the organizing of the focus groups in Little Rock "are getting tied together. But we would be doing the focus groups exactly the same whether that vote occurred or not."
Forward Arkansas leaders are using members of the steering committee or school district superintendents to draw on their familiarity with their communities to nominate people who are likely to have a rich, diverse set of opinions for service on the focus groups, Henderson said.
In rural communities, the membership of the focus groups is more likely to be a blend of school and community members. In Little Rock, the focus groups have school district-related participants. The planners are drawing on steering committee members and interviews of experts in different fields to collect the opinions and ideas of those outside schools.
The hour-long focus-group sessions will include a few questions that probe the areas that are relevant to the working-group topics, but by and large the focus-group members will drive the conversations, he said.
The views and lessons gained from the focus groups will be used, he said.
"Without real information and without real involvement ... we just won't be able to develop the plan that will make the difference that we want to happen for our kids."
SundayMonday on 02/08/2015