"The question of the next decade or so is whether the lottery scholarships change that or merely ease the burden of the cost of college to those who were already en route to a degree." Posted by MaxB

Or maybe do neither.

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It should be noted that (if I remember correctly) Arkansas has the highest concentration of community colleges (and other institutions of higher learning) of any state in the nation.

This may say something about the efficacy of our expensive system of community colleges, of which I've always been supportive. Perhaps, like school districts, more is not necessarily better. Or maybe it is.

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Arkansans are the most curious breed of folks. To be born in the Ark is a degree to understand over one's life, one's journey, one's Odyssey!

To comprehend numbers and Numbers, Albert Pike and the nature of the Caddo and what is happening sometimes requires real leadership in the spritual, business and government sectors to do what is graceful and mercifully just, does it not?

I do not think or believe for a minute that Arkansans or any state population is diminished in their thinking. Sometimes, though areas may not have executed the research at an appropriate scale to comprehend the results as well as implications of the inquiry. What are your thoughts about plugging the hole in an era of rapid communications and diminished/and/with/ or reflection?

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This is not intended to excuse the reality of the educational condition in Arkansas, nor is it intended to rag on Arkansas as a state, the educators who do what they can, or the students who may want an education but not be able to get one, or those who may be able to get one but don't want one. I am an Arkansas native, so I'm not an outsider knocking the state!

That said, my observations and reflections are a mixed bag.

I grew up in a rural environment where many students denigrated education and the work required to achieve academically. A very small portion of our graduating classes even considered college. Many even sneered at the notion. That attitude hasn't changed among a large proportion of students--and their parents--since that time.

Many college graduates leave the state for better economic opportunities. So although the colleges produce graduates, the number of citizens with a college education does not increase proportionately.

Same basic condition stated from a different perspective: Arkansas is not just teeming with corporations and companies looking for highly educated employees. We do not have a large number of high-level employers either to keep our own graduates or attract graduates from other states.

Arkansas is largely a rural, agricultural state. Rural and agricultural do not exactly require large numbers of highly educated people.

Arkansas is also largely a resort/tourist state. Resort/tourist makes good employment opportunities for custodial and other service vocations. Neither is very academically demanding.

In its early days, Arkansas was a border state; it attracted to its secluded mountains many residents who wanted to get away from both government and society to a place where they could do their own thing and live largely on hunting, fishing, and subsistence farming. They raised their food crops, especially corn--of which they drank what they could and ate the rest or fed it to their livestock. The people who evaporated into the Ozarks basically wanted to be left alone and they especially didn't want to be corrupted with education.

Delta plantations needed a lot of field hands and more or less prospered as long as slavery provided bountiful cheap labor. The "hill billies" didn't want nor need no education! The loggers of the southern forests didn't need a high school diploma, let alone a college degree, to pull a cross-cut saw.

When you rank any group, someone's going to be at the top and someone's going to be at the bottom. But that doesn't mean I really like it, or feel proud, when it's always us at the bottom.

It seems we're at the top of the list for things we don't like all that much--divorce, teen-age pregnancy, children born out of wedlock--and at the bottom for things we do like--median income, performance on academic tests, high school graduates, college students, college graduates, people with degrees.

It's a wonder we do as well as we do. There just aren't enough pulling the average up to offset the number pulling the average down.

And it could be that a significant number have responded to the conventionsl wisdom: If you don't like it here, why don't you go somewhere else?

Which leaves only a minority remnant of us who aspire for improvement to stay here and work for it--against all odds.

IMHO

Prufe red etc.

SkyP

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My grandson received a Lottery scholarship to the University of Arkansas. These scholarships were made available to all graduating high school students that met certain criteria for the first time ever. Is this not something that Bill Halter and the state can point to with pride?

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Good commentary Sky. During Clinton's term as guv many comments were made about Arkansawyers and their innate feelings of inferiority. He sought to do something about it.

However, you do need to get up to date on Arkansas' economics. Agriculture is no longer our leader in gross product. Manufacturing is several times larger than agriculture. In 2005 construction was much larger than agriculture. The largest part
of Arkansas's gross product is government.
http://www.localcensus.com/state/Arkansas

The other situation hampering education in Arkansas is religion. Less than 20%
of the state is aligned with religions which promote and celebrate education; Catholics, Methodist, Jews. Most Arkansas religious leaders are anti-science and certainly anti-reason.

You will find religious-fundie groups fighting against educational opportunities for our immigrant residents. Thus far, the ones I've seen leading the fight have no college education themselves. Think Jim Holt.
.
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Back in '77 when I started at Fayetteville, I met a guy from Morrilton that became a good friend.

When I went home with him one weekend I was astounded that his dad constantly berated his wanting to go to college! The father had a chance to get him on at "The Mill", a chance after a couple years to get up to $20,000 bucks! The mill closed before we finished school.

My parents had always said that they would do all they could to help out if I or my 5 sibs went to college. But there wasn't going to be much they could help. With out massive scholarships out of state or private wasn't an option.

SkyP,

Arkansas is not "teeming with corporations" simply because the education level is so low. An uneducated work force can be had for much much much lower wages overseas. If a company decides wages are too high in Ohio or Illinois then why go to midwage area like AR if $280 bucks gets you a month worker at a Honda plant in China?

I disagree that in the rural areas there is less opportunity to use a higher education. Many Ag degrees will help you prosper and stay in your area. A rancher with an education can prosper knowing the optimum time to cut hay to maximize the forage quality where as a feller guessin if the grass is tall enough or if he should wait will flounder. A logger understanding timber stand management can run a successful timber company or another feller simply stays as a feller with a chainsaw slashin and moving on.

A fellow with economics education can do an analysis to see if becomng a contract grower for Tyson is a good deal and be able to determine if a contract offer by Pilgrim's Pride is merely a sharecropper agreement.

I believe SkyP that it is more important in rural areas to have an education becausee there are fewer opportunities available and less chance for success without the knowledge needed to compete. Your competition will not be stronger workers nearby but smarter workers a greater distance away.

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“Huffington Post . . . said Arkansas has the lowest percentage of college degree holders among all the states, slightly more than 25 percent.”

25 percent? Gee, many sources say it's 19%. According to the Arkansas Times, 31% of Pulaski County adults over age 25 hold a bachelor's degree or higher which compares very favorably with the national average.

I'd love to see Pulaski County's percentage set as a minimum goal for the entire state.

Financial constraints are said to be one of the top two reasons why Arkansas's young people don't enter college or finish school. Hopefully, the lotto scholarships will ease the financial pain for 28,000 of them next school year.

Thank you, Bill Halter. Thank you, Arkansas voters.

As that billboard near the Broadway Bridge in Little Rock screamed way back there in 1957, "Who will build Arkansas if her own people do not?"

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Arkansas currently also has a 57 to 62 percent degree of remediation among those students attending colleges in Arkansas, the measuring stick is not how many attend colleges with gambling money, it's how many graduate from college in a grand failed experiment called lottery gambling for education and the kids, did some one miraculously change the components of how we derive state gambling proceeds? the generational impact of gambling scholarships will be off set entirely by tuition increases and added social and economic cost, 42 states that have lottery gambling have shown that, are we seriously stupid enough to think lottery gambling in its current form is a good mechanism to fund scholarships, since the Ernie gambling operation with no over sight state quasi state agency started hawking there wares to the poor, low educated and hopeless folks that make up half of our state, we rose to 5th in the nation for scratch off ticket sales. At the minimal national rate measurable of 4-6 percent of the population being problem, not addictive, gamblers Arkansas can expect annual cost directly associated with problem lottery gambling that will exceed the over all margin of profits from gambling, 21 cents on the dollar currently is the amount going for scholarships. Arkansas is the only state to begin government operated gambling with zero programs or any budget for education or prevention. Halter is an idiot, those who kiss his lottery gambling ass are idiots, cut the "personal choice to gamble" crap and be honest about what we chose to do, we chose to send a bunch of unprepared students to college on the backs of Arkansas poorest uneducated and most vulnerable citizens. Wake up and see both sides of the lottery gambling coin. Go back to school Dollar Bill and take all the math challenged assholes that don't give a damn about what gambling is doing for Arkansas in reality, for a Rhodes Scholar you are one stupid son of a bitch.

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SkyPilot, you are very accurate in a lot of your assessments.
I especially agree with you on lots of people being educated here but they don't stay here.

I was born and raised here and I want to stay here a little while after I graduate college but something tells me I'll be moving away.
I'm an African-American atheist lesbian. Let's just say I'm not the most welcome person in Arkansas despite living here all my life.

I would like to see the ACT and GPA requirement raised for the scholarship. Students should score at least a 23 AND have AT LEAST a 3.0 GPA. We need to make sure these students are prepared to do college work. The more remedial classes you are required to take, the more your chances for graduating college go down.

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SocialistArkie,

Give it time, things change even in Arkansas, nor are all Arkansas communities actively indulging in fear and bigoted pograms.

I wanted to move away after college and did, but I eventually realized there are a lot of things to like about the state and the people and I came back. I think you'll find situations different in other places and maybe the hatred and bigotry are more covert. However, just because they are hidden, they are no less dangerous and dismaying.

I wish you well, in your future. I have read many of your comments and you seem to me to be earnest, intelligent and engaged. However, I'm not sure I can agree with you about the ACT and GPA.

I taught college and my observation was that the ACT was not as good a measure of a student's collegiate work capabilities as the SAT. However, I do know from personal observation that an ACT of 23 and GPA of 3.0 are indicators only and not an assurance of collegiate success.

I would prefer not to see students required to take 9 and 12 semester credit hours of remedial courses, but I know that many of the students I advised and counseled at OSU simply did not have an opportunity to take the courses until college because of deficiencies in High School curriculum, especially in small rural communities. Also some of my advisees hit a cusp of maturity in college that awoke a consuming thirst and devotion to their collegiate studies. Most of those would have been eliminated from scholarship by your criteria.

I have the belief that serving in the military for one hitch is of immeasurable value to students in their approach to college. All of the veterans I taught had a much higher work ethic, dedication to their studies and their career after graduation than the students who went from High School directly to college. I too libertarian in my beliefs to think of imposing mandatory military service (or say Peace Corps or an in-country USA equivalent) as a mandatory requisite for scholarships.

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Looks as if this thread has about run out; I'm probably in the room by myself, so no one else may hear this, but here are a few additional reflections:

1. Those who called attention to the gaps in my understanding are correct: I was reflecting my perceptions gathered over a lifetime; I have not kept up-to-date on every issue; also, my observations were top-of-the-head reflections, not the result of careful investigation. These were simply blog thoughts, not a term paper; so I acknowledge the weaknesses.


2. The thoughts of others bring into focus the circumstance that the educational process is a many-faceted and very complex issue.

A. Education, at its best, starts with a good Pre-K experience. This is not available to all students--in Arkansas or anywhere else.

B. Not all students are equally motivated or encouraged. Teachers and administrators can't fix this.

C. Some schools don't have very high-quality instruction. Better teachers might help; perhaps brighter and more highly motivated students might also help.

D. Some schools have good quality, but are limited in quantity. My rural school was a good one, but limited: We had biology but not chemistry; we had no foreign language; we had ninth grade algebra and tenth grade plane geometry, and then typing in the eleventh grade and business math in the twelfth. We did not have physics. Speech was introduced as a new subject in my junior year.

E. Remedial classes are a drag on the colleges and universities, but if our objective is to educate people, then at least we're making an effort to overcome some of our deficiencies.

F. I can't comment much on ACT and SAT as those came relatively late in my career and I never tried to track them among my students. I could have checked GPAs, but didn't. I paid attention only to student performance in my own classes.

G. GPAs are a good indicator of academic success, but academic success is not necessarily a dependable indicator of future succcess in "the real world." Some studies suggest that the good C and low-B students do much better in life than the "brains" who took all the academic awards in school.

H. It is apparent that a lot of things need "fixing." But our educational system is so large and so complex that it is impossible to fix everything at once; and it is impossible simply to "start over and do it right from the beginning." So we're left with patchwork remedies which result in little more than putting band-aids on serious wounds.

I. It's not a perfect world we live in. We muddle and struggle. But we do achieve victories here and there. And despite all of its faults and limitations, we're better off for our broad-based public educational system than we would be with a series of private schools where only the wealthy would have the benefit of education--as was the case in "the old countries" where only the aristocracy and economically privileged could aspire to significant amounts of education.

I don't recall the specifics or the source, but early in my graduate studies I read an essay or some such thing by Thomas Jefferson--as I recall. The gist of it was that he proposed an "aristocracy" of the educated, not an aristocracy by birth or economic privilege. And that's the reason he was such a strong proponent of educational institutions being made available to all--to ALL!

That notion has served us well. A democracy depends upon an educated citizenry. And if there is a laboratory that demonstrates the result of limited education on a society, it is Arkansas!

If we don't treasure education, then we treasure ignorance. And the most reliable indicators suggest that ignorance is treasured more than education in Arkansas.

The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. And hydrogen is running a distant second.

IMHO

Prufe red etc.

SkyP

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DotHoliday, I agree the ACT does not tell you how well someone will do in college.
My girlfriend didn't score very well on the ACT but she has a high college GPA.

I know lots of people who made 30+ on the ACT and they dropped out of college.

SkyPilot, I agree not every student is motivated. That's why I hate so much of this rhetoric that places SOOO much blame on teachers but hardly any on the students themselves or the teachers.
I knew plenty of kids who went to sleep during our standardized tests. They could care less. The teacher couldn't MAKE them finish it, all she could do was wake them up and hope they'll give a da**.

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SA: I was never able to teach a student anything s/he didn't want to learn!!!

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You mean one in four of the people that I see in the West Helena Wal-Mart has a college degree? Who'da thunk it......

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