Attack of the adjectives!

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"inefficient charter schools, most unproven and often poorly run"

What standard is being applied for comparison, the efficient and expertly run LRSD? Never mind Mississippi, thank God for PCSSD.

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Given that charter schools ares "opening with whiter, richer and better performing students", can the same criticism be directed at LRSD magnets like Parkview.?

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“Can't we get along?”

Regret being so pessimistic, but I’ve come to believe the differences among the various factions are irreconcilable. Seems to me that most people living within the LRSD have given up, checked out, become disengaged, and moved on. They’re too busy trying to decide which flick to see tomorrow night to worry about the schools. It is what it is. Looks like David up against Goliath, but I admire you for hanging in there, Boss. Is there a pill for that, and if so where can I get it?

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Privatize the profits..... the model is set in higher education, why is it so difficult for so many to see with the template in front of us of how these cannibalistic ponzi scheming billionaires work on everything they do?

The health care debacle and our defense expenditures alone are more than enough proof of how they place themselves in the middle for no productive supply or return. The assault on Social Security too.

Look at the same culprits and their myriad of costly, worthless "higher education" schemes and how they are falling now.

http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoda…

Brummet will negotiate with the most brutal of sadists... it's disgusting and he should at least quit trying to take us all to the dungeon with him. Or admit that's what he's doing.

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At the end of the day, the billionaires don't care if the schools improve or not. They just feel that education is a privilege reserved for the rich. We need to call out their real motives. If they really cared, they'd be giving money and time to public schools but they don't.

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Moving the Grating Little Rock Chamber to Cabot is one of the best suggestions JB has ever made! Their building would make a wonderful restaurant. Besides, half their employees live in Cabot so it would have the extra benefit of reducing the amount of auto exhaust wasted by their commute to the Best Educated City In The State.

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“. . the Best Educated City In The State.”

Spot on, Sanford. According to the Arkansas Times, 31.3 percent of adults who live in Pulaski County hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, well above the national average of 27.4%. No other community in Arkansas comes close to Greater LR.

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Durango, how can that be? Charter Schools haven't been around long enough to produce college graduates? Let's put the Walter E. Hussman University (We-Hooo) Noo Math team to work on sifting through the Stuh Stis Tiks until the proper answer can be made into a headline.

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So Hussman, Walton, and Murphy are pouring millions of dollars into public education instead of building a series of private schools and all the public school people do is bitch about it.

Durango is correct. Whether it is for good reason or not, about a third the central Arkansas population has decided LRSD is not where they are going to send their kids. It IS a problem.

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Not to be argumentative with your numbers Durango, but according to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (2006-2008, see the link below), 39.0% of adults in the LR area have a bachelor's degree or higher. In Fayetteville, that percentage is 43.6%. Think the Times has it's numbers wrong, and it's facts....

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTa…

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In the seven states I have lived in, this is the only one where the spokespeople for the business community have declared open warfare on the public school system. In most advanced states (i.e., above AR and MS or vice versa), the business community actively works WITH the school system as an asset to the community.

I guess the "plantation" attitude is still alive and well here. But then, there is the attitude about not letting people have their right to assembly under the Constitition if it favors them as a group in the form of a union.

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The ongoing attacks on the public schools by the "business" community are as harmful as the school's performance they attack. The overall impression is that they are not interested in improving performance as much as tearing down public education. It would be great to see business help the public schools, rather than be a constant source of negativity.

If someone's kids do not or have not attended public schools, then they should not be engaged in tearing those schools down. They have no knowledge of what goes on and they have no personal interest in improving performance.

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Chuckles:

Our number on college education in Pulaski County -- not Little Rock -- came from 2008 U.S. Census estimates and was contained in last year's Natives Guide of Pulaski County. It did not include a comparison with others, whether city, county or metropolitan area. I think the most recent data on Little Rock proper for college and above is 39 percent. The American Community Survey estimates for Pulaski and Washington counties show Pulaski at 31.3 and Washington at 27.5 (I originally misread these figures and had them as being the same.)

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Since Max has listed some of the billionaires, and now the attacks are against those listed, some of you should educate yourselves on what the Murphy's have done in Eldorado. The free college education they offer to every kid is available for those kids a the PUBLIC ElDorado High School. This generosity has helped the PUBLIC schools there flourish. Perhaps it is not PUBLIC schools they don't like.

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Dowhat,

We've written extensively, and praised lavishly, the Murphy supported initiatives for public schools in El Dorado, including but not limited to the El Dorado scholarship program, a truly wondrous thing. The difference there, of course, is the effort to make the existing system work better, not to tear it down and create an alternative, as is underway in Little Rock.

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It's only the Little Rock public schools they don't like.

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Agreed Max. Some of the bloggers write as if it is the public schools the Murphy's, et al are against. It is not. They are against what they perceive to be poorly run public schools. If they are for good pulic schools and against bad ones (as we all should be), then the debate is: in which group does the LRSD belong? This is where we differ with the billionaires.

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Chuckles, thanks for the numbers. I like your 39% for Little Rock more than the 31.3% I cited for Pulaski County. Much more, in fact.

You’ll note that earlier I expanded upon Sanford’s term “city” by using the terms “Pulaski County,” “Greater Little Rock” (not the city proper) and “community,” as in the greater community of Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County which, to my way of thinking, are all one and the same.

When it comes to cities-proper, though, one would think (as I usually have) that being the home of the UofA and with a population, age 18 and older, of only 55,000, Fayetteville would have the highest percentage of college grads in the state. So if we’re talking Fayetteville proper, I’m not surprised (and am very pleased) about the 43.6%.

To talk apples to apples in terms of the “Greater” community, I suppose we’d have to compare what I call Greater LR (Pulaski County) to Greater Fayetteville (Washington County). Using the link you provided, I find that the percentage of college graduates in Washington County is 27.5% as compared with Pulaski County’s 31.3%.

The good news in all of this is that both Washington and Pulaski counties exceed the national college-graduate average of 27.4%.

Thanks, again, for chipping in, Chuckles. You’ve helped me expand my horizon today. Hey, is this blog grand or what?

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Let's get it out in the open. Hussman and the Waltons don't like unions and take every chance they can and support every cause they can to deny people their Constitutional right to assembly in any group they see fit.

Walmart has tried to close stores in Canada that voted in unions and took all of their meat-cutting in every US store back to the butchers at the low-paid meat factories to keep from having one a union at one store in one town in Texas. Try to get a piece of meat cut to order in any Walmart. I don't think they are allowed anything with a blade longer than a case cutter. And I know, there are meat saws at Sam's but Walmart is the example that permeates every state they can get their claws into.

It's the anti-union thing. Keep them down on the plantation.

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Durango & Max,

Points duly noted...thanks for the clarification.

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Couldn't be better: "I guess the "plantation" attitude is still alive and well here."

Yes, I think you've nailed it precisely. It's all about race in Little Rock when it comes to education. And these billionaires hate the fact that the black community relies upon LRSD as a source of keeping it's middle class alive. I'm not saying that the average pro private school parent is aware of this, I just think they want blacks working in the yard and not going to their school. So to me, it's about dismantling the black middle class in this city. And I'm a white man making the statement.

I do believe if a teacher isn't doing their job, black or white, fire their ass.

One of the Little Rock Schools that has made incredible headway in the last year or so is McClellan High. It is the ONLY LRSD high school to make safe harbor in both math AND literacy this year. If I understand correctly (word of mouth from friends), literacy was up 23 points and math was up 15 points. Both well over what was needed to make safe harbor. This is a school that has been labeled as the "ghetto school" by the district and community for years. Yet, because of dedication of teachers and students, it is now in safe harbor. Were there mass teacher firings? No. Is there a new student demographic? No. This school is at least 95 percent black. Same teachers, same students succeeding. Will the billionaire club lavish this school the way Murphy did El Dorado? No.

Also, you can bet that these billionaires have friends who are sharpening their axes to chop away at the BILLIONS in federal and state dollars that private industy can obtain by getting rid of public schools.

That's what out of control capitalism does. It looks to gobble up anything that has money. Private industry is after public lands, public housing, public roadways, fire departments, and police departments. They want all these things privatized to make money. Public schools just happens to be on the list.

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