Baker Kurrus' last day as superintendent of the Little Rock School District was June 30, just this week, and it's worth reflecting on his numerous accomplishments.
Near the top would be taking one of the six schools in academic distress, Baseline Elementary, and reconstituting it. He hired a new principal for the school, Jonathan Crossley, a Teach for America alum--who taught five years as a high school teacher in the Palestine-Wheatley School District and was also Teacher of the Year in Arkansas. Mr. Kurrus had all the teachers and staff resign at Baseline, then gave Crossley complete discretion on who to hire or rehire. As a result, that school made significant progress this year and is now off the academic distress list.
Not only did Baker Kurrus do a great service for the students at Baseline Elementary, he has shown the way on how to address the other failing schools in Little Rock. When any school, in Little Rock or elsewhere, is failing, it's usually a problem of leadership on the part of the principal. And when there's a problem with leadership, there's a problem with the culture in the school, creating a morale problem among the teachers. The surest and quickest way to address this is reconstituting the school the way it was done at Baseline Elementary. Hopefully Michael Poore, the new Little Rock school superintendent, will consider reconstituting the other five schools still in academic distress.
Another major accomplishment was buying the vacant Leisure Arts Building in west Little Rock and converting it to a middle school. This will not only save the district millions of dollars in new construction costs, but it addresses a significant need for a middle school in west Little Rock. This need had been ignored for many years until the opening of the Quest Charter School on Rahling Road. We've not heard anyone from Quest complain that this is "duplicating facilities." Indeed, we think the competition between the two west Little Rock public middle schools will be good. In fact, we think they will probably both be successful and filled to capacity. If so, this will give taxpaying families a public school choice compared to the burden of paying tuition to a private school.
It's also worth remembering that Baker Kurrus reduced the teachers' union contract from 94 pages down to 10. Which is something that no other superintendent in Little Rock has done in decades, and probably few superintendents have done anywhere else in the country. Superintendent Kurrus also started addressing the bloated nature of the school district payroll. For a school district that saw declines in enrollment but an increase from some 2,700 people 20 years ago to more than 3,900 when he arrived, he has made small but important reductions in staff. While there is much more that needs to be done, at least Mr. Kurrus has taken it in the right direction.
Another one of his many accomplishments was to improve on last year's PARCC tests. For example, eight of the 30 elementary schools had 50 percent or more of their students score at grade level, far above the state average. Still a lot more work to do, especially in the other schools, but it is at least heading in the right direction.
For someone who really didn't need the job, Mr. Kurrus took the challenge at less than competitive pay, worked hard and diligently, and kept an open mind to working with groups like the business community and the teachers' union. His emphasis was on teaching over administration and helped improve morale. Using his business background, he laid out a financial plan not just to open a middle school in west Little Rock but also add another high school in southwest Little Rock without a millage increase.
The one disappointment with Mr. Kurrus was his attitude toward charter schools. We have never understood his argument that charter schools skim the brightest and more affluent students, especially since there is no academic or financial criteria for admissions. Admission to the charter schools is chosen by a blind lottery, making it impossible for these schools to skim.
Indeed, one of the purposes of charter schools is to give a choice to lower-income, often minority families who do not have the economic means to buy homes in attendance zones with better schools and cannot afford tuition to private schools. Thousands of these students have found a better option in Little Rock through charter schools. If some wealthier families now send their kids to charter schools in the district rather than private schools--where they get educated next to lower-income or minority students--we see that as a benefit, not a a negative. Charter schools like Little Rock Preparatory Academy have focused primarily on attracting lower-income minority students, and its enrollment is more than 90 percent black. Charter schools like eStem and LISA have a highly diverse student body, with both schools having more minority than white students. This is proof that race does not matter to families if they know they can get a high-quality education. Both eStem and LISA have been among the top performing schools in Little Rock.
An additional benefit is that the competition from charter schools has put more pressure on the traditional public schools to do even better. This is probably where we and Baker Kurrus would disagree. He is probably more in favor of the monopoly model, offering one choice to all students. We believe that this model has not worked in Little Rock or elsewhere in America for years, indeed for decades.
After years of the failure of the education monopoly, it is time for competition, which already exists between public and private schools, and should exist between public schools in an effort to improve all of them.
Despite our differences on charters, we thank Baker Kurrus for his many accomplishments. We hope he will continue his enthusiasm and dedication to improving all public education in Little Rock and Arkansas in the years ahead.
Editorial on 07/02/2016