Guest column

A mouthpiece for public education

It's easy for the reader to misunderstand why Tuesday's editorial (Monopoly vs. choice) opened with a quote from Orwell's 1984. One might assume it was a somber warning about the insidious way Big Brother manipulates historical narratives.

Once the editorial had been read it was clear that the use of the quote was not as a warning, but rather a boast. The Democrat-Gazette editorial page is Big Brother. Or at least it's Big Brother's mouthpiece when it comes to public education. So why not boast? Big Brother is winning. The Big Brother we're dealing with here differs in one important-to-note way from Orwell's nightmarish vision. Today's Big Brother is Big Business.

I'm not suggesting that Big Business is united on this issue. Some see a business opportunity to exploit in the charter school model. Others in the business community gave up on public education long ago, so what's the harm in backing a new horse? There are some business leaders who are glad to support public education as long as the "right" people retain control and call the shots. Hence the Democrat-Gazette's felt need to whitesplain a few things to Joyce Elliott and Linda Chesterfield.

The Democrat-Gazette editorialist praises Johnny Key for his bravery and his resolve in the face of such great opposition. But what's Key got to be scared of? He has the full backing of some parties with a vested interest in the business of charter schools. He has the political support of people who literally changed the rules so he could hold his current position. He enjoys the public-relations cover of the only people in central Arkansas who buy paper by the ton and ink by the barrel. Brave Johnny Key goes to work every day not having to worry one whit what the poor and working-class parents of Little Rock have to say or what they need. Why should he? The powerful back him. The powerless are ... well, powerless to influence him. By the way, Mr. Editorialist, it's called bravery when the powerless oppose the powerful. What Mr. Key and his backers are doing is called hubris.

The hiring of Michael Poore might turn out to be a good decision. I hope so. We'll see. The firing of Baker Kurrus was a poor decision. (Apparently a punitive one as well.) Taking over the LRSD and dismantling the elected school board was nigh unto a criminal action. It wasn't brave. It was a backroom deal. A cash grab. An exercise in unelected, unrestrained power backed by the full faith and credit of the Walton Foundation. (My one bit of counsel to Mr. Poore is he shouldn't sell his house in NWA unless he intends to check first with the Walton Foundation and then with the Democrat-Gazette editorial writers on what he should say about charter school expansion. You know, in order to be brave.)

And kudos to you, brave editorialist, for having the temerity to imply Joyce Elliott, who as a child suffered firsthand the slings and arrows of 1957, doesn't care about black children. Why? Because she will not fall lockstep in line with an unfair, unsustainable workaround to the moral obligation we have to provide an education for every child in our community. "The past was erased" indeed. And you did it.

Here I've gone and buried the lede. Tuesday's editorial was all about choice. (Something Walter Hussman went to extraordinary--some might even say predatory--lengths to guarantee we wouldn't have in terms of daily newspapers around here.) The choices are public schools, private schools and the hybrid charter schools, essentially private schools that are funded with public money. Of course there are long waiting lists of African American children to get into charter schools. That's not proof that charters are the answer. It's proof that the people are smart enough to know when their leaders have abandoned them. Public schools haven't failed us. We've failed public schools.

Tim Jackson, a 1984 graduate of Little Rock's Parkview High School, is a parent of a sixth grader at Horace Mann Middle School, a former Arkansas Democrat paperboy, and a current Democrat-Gazette subscriber.

Editorial on 05/22/2016

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