Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who serves in lieu of an elected school board in the state-controlled Little Rock School District, said Wednesday that district improvements are being made on a daily basis and at a rate that is exceeding his expectations.
"The time frame we thought it would take to start seeing success -- it's accelerated beyond my greatest hopes," Key told Little Rock School District principals and other administrators at the district's annual Leadership Institute held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Clarion Hotel in anticipation of the Aug. 17 start of the school year.
Key attributed the progress to the work of lawyer and businessman Baker Kurrus, whom Key appointed to be the district's superintendent May 6. Kurrus replaced Dexter Suggs, who was the superintendent for nearly two years before resigning amid allegations by the Blue Hog Report blog that Suggs had plagiarized portions of his doctoral thesis.
The state commissioner also cited as a factor in district improvements an "organizational transformation" of the school system that is meant to return to employees the authority to do their jobs in educating students.
"You all know what you need to be doing," Key told the administrators, whom he described as "beaming" with excitement in contrast to the fears, concerns and tears he saw this past spring. "Now you are released, free. The organization structure is there so that you can do that."
He urged the administrators to go beyond hoping for a good school year and instead decide to make it the best.
The Arkansas Board of Education voted 5-4 on Jan. 28 to immediately assume control of the Little Rock School District by removing the seven elected School Board members and placing the superintendent under the supervision of the commissioner.
The state takeover was the result of six of the district's 48 schools being classified by the state as academically distressed.
Fewer than half of the students in those six schools -- Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools, and J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools -- scored at proficient levels on state math and literacy tests over a three-year period.
The district is not expected to be returned to local control until student achievement improves at the schools to the point that the state labels are removed.
The time period for evaluating year-to-year student achievement gains and returning the district to local control is uncertain because the state tests that were used to initially label the schools as distressed -- the Augmented Benchmark and End-of-Course exams -- are no longer used.
The state required schools to give the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers this past year, but that testing program will be replaced with a third set of tests in as many years -- the ACT Aspire exams in English, reading, math and science -- in this forthcoming school year.
Key, who has been commissioner since March, told his audience Wednesday that the entire state has a stake in the Little Rock School District.
"Arkansas needs the Little Rock School District to be successful," he said to applause. "Without success in Little Rock School District, any success anywhere else in Arkansas is going to be hindered.
"I hope you feel unleashed to do the job that you know needs to be done to educate these kids," Key said, adding that students -- regardless of their personal challenges -- are eager to meet the high expectations set by their teachers.
In introducing Key, Kurrus said that he and Key have worked well together since Kurrus took the job May 6.
"It's been such a collaborative effort. He is so supportive of our school district, so willing to help," Kurrus said. "Everybody at the Arkansas Department of Education is pulling for us and helping us every way they can. It's a tremendous asset to our school district to have a commissioner and a governor and a Department of Education that is on our side."
Metro on 07/30/2015