State Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock says one of the main problems with the state takeover of the Little Rock public schools--and she can give you several--is that local patrons have nowhere to go with their questions and concerns.
Elliott's complaint sounds unfair to Michael Poore, the state-appointed superintendent who is not remotely the problem and works feverishly to engage the community.
But, as Elliott and others point out, Poore must himself report to the state education commissioner, Johnny Key, an aloof figure in Little Rock who answers to the state Education Board.
Elliott is doing something tonight to try to fix that. She has been the driving force in getting other Little Rock legislators to join her in hosting a town-hall meeting from 5:30 to 7, scheduled at this writing for the Old Supreme Court chamber at the state Capitol, although there was a little talk of seeking a larger venue.
The public is invited to come and ask what it wishes of the three or four members of the state Education Board who have said they will attend--and maybe even of Key, the de facto one-man school board for Little Rock.
For some in Little Rock, finally hearing Johnny Key speak would be bigger than finally hearing the voice of Jared Kushner.
(If Key doesn't make his Little Rock voice debut tonight, then he will do so at noon Sept. 27 at the Clinton School of Public Service in a conversation with Skip Rutherford to which the public is invited.)
Tonight's event would seem to hold every chance of overflowing the old courtroom. And it would seem to offer a strong prospect of degenerating into a venting session for angry local citizens who see vile intentions in the state's takeover, especially while the state keeps approving charter schools to compete with the regular public schools it's supposed to be rehabilitating.
Elliott says she intends for proceedings to remain civil, orderly and, she hopes, productive.
She and nearly every public official in sight in Little Rock believe it is time, after nearly three years, for the state takeover to end and for control to be returned to an elected local school board.
A prominent local man speaking on condition of non-attribution told me that, at this point, the state is "just getting in the way" of what must now happen.
What must now happen, he said, is for local patrons to rid themselves of cynicism about the state takeover and re-engage with a local board of their choosing. And, he said, it's time to get busy on a long-range plan to upgrade Little Rock's facilities to keep the district competitive--or perhaps make it competitive again--not only with charter schools and private or parochial schools, but with adjoining public school districts, indeed all public schools in the state and nation.
That can't possibly start--Little Rock's official line seems to be--if the state is controlling the district and sapping local energy and stymieing local input.
There is a touch of irony that some might see as a touch of hypocrisy.
Progressive-minded people in Little Rock generally supported the bill made into law after the epic Lake View school case to give the state the authority to seize control of local districts that met a definition of failure either in finances or academics.
Yet now those people cry out for a return to local control when it's their school district that is affected.
Elliott argues the takeover shouldn't have happened in the first place, since only six of the 48 schools in the district met the definition of academic distress.
Either way, the takeover happened and three of the schools have improved to the point of no longer meeting the definition of distress while the other three have done a little better on testing. And state law allows the state to relinquish control at this point, at least by a published timeline based on transparent benchmarks.
Jay Barth, a state Education Board member who is from Little Rock, and liberal, has proposed as yet to no avail that a timeline for restoration of local control be set, one tied to the next practical opportunity for board elections.
He told me he was open to the idea of re-establishing a local school board but limiting for a time the local board's authority to replace the superintendent. That's because Poore is not the problem, but an instant personnel fight and a loss of continuity in leadership might be.
Through it all, tonight's meeting may not satisfy patrons. Key, if attending, can rely on procedural crutches.
He can say the state Board of Education is prohibited by state law from setting a moratorium on new charter schools. He can explain that he can't relinquish the district to local control at least until a legally required system analysis is completed.
Even so, a meeting that brings Little Rock public school supporters into live real-time conversation with the people running their schools--that has to be seen as a positive thing.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 08/24/2017