Charter schools: Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Waltons working on school takeover in Massachusetts

Max Brantley — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:47:00 -0500

The Walton family effort to redesign publicly financed schools in their image — they prefer essentially privatized operations unanswerable to elected school boards and stripped of teacher association representation, preferably with "out-counseling" of difficult students to the remnant real public schools — is familiar by now in Arkansas.

But the Billionaire Boys Club is at work nationally.

That effort gets a rip on this blog in Massachusetts.

You see, here in Massachusetts, the annual occasion on which politicians and advocates for children spend the day bepraising teachers rather than besmirching them just happens to fall right smack in the middle of cap-raising season. For non-excellence lovers: the “cap” is the artificial limit on excellence and innovation that is prohibiting our children from reaching their fullest 21st century workplace skills and prosperity potential. But who among us has the enormous wealth to fund the grassroots movement well-oiled lobbying machine necessary to at last remove the constraints on excellence (and also sneak in a sneaky provision that will force public school districts to hand over “underutilized” property to privately operated charter operators at “rent controlled prices”)? Meet the generous hosts of today’s event, the Waltons: John-Boy, Zeb, Grandma and Olivia Alice, Jim, Rob and Christy. On this special day, we lift our caps to them!

It turns out that Walmart money is paying for virtually every aspect of the campaign to eliminate the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts. Millions in Walmart dough is being steered to the groups that advocate for charter school expansion, finance the construction of new charters, conduct the polls showing growing public support for more charters and place strategic op-eds calling for more charters. Some $2 million of that money, by the way, goes to individual academies of excellence and innovation, like MATCH and Excel, whose students are transformed into junior lobbyists come cap raising season. Breaking news: a new poll finds that support for excellence rises as voters learn more about its excellence.

All the lobby groups and tactics outlined in Massachusetts are fully deployed by Walton money here, including a Walton-financed arm at their wholly owned university in Fayetteville (nominally known as the University of Arkansas) designed to turn out "research" to validate their view of education.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Report questions performance of 'virtual schools,' just expanded in Arkansas

Max Brantley — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:51:56 -0500

The Arkansas legislature opened a new stream of state money on virtual schools — a scheme in which state money equivalent to that given brick-and-mortar schools with labs, gyms, cafeterias, buses, teachers, etc. is given for home schooled students, largely to the benefit of private management companies that serve the virtual school industry. Where Arkansas virtual enrollment had been capped at 500, it can go to 3,000 next school year, though new students may come only from students who've been enrolled this year in conventional schools.

Such virtual schools appear to be a risky public investment, according to this new research from the National Education Policy Center. The report reviewed 311 full-time virtual schools with 200,000 students, the majority in "charters" operated by education management organizations such as K12 Inc., the management organization for the Arkansas Virtual Academy's elementary and middle schools. Bottom line:

Compared with conventional public schools, researchers found that full-time virtual schools serve relatively few Black and Hispanic students [Arkansas's "virtual" schoolers are 90 percent white], students who are poor, and special education students. In addition, on the common metrics of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), state performance rankings, and graduation rates, full-time virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools. [In the report, the Arkansas virtual school in 2011, the most recent data available, didn't meet the annual yearly progress standard}

Also:

To date, claims made in support of expanding virtual education are largely unsupported by high quality research evidence.

Among the recommendations:

Policymakers should slow or stop growth of virtual schools until the reasons for their relatively poor performance have been identified and addressed.

Too late for Arkansas.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

LISA Academy 'blind-sided' by city?

Max Brantley — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:46:33 -0500

Claudia Lauer continues her reporting in the Democrat-Gazette today on Lisa Academy's expansion from 600 to 790 students without required city approval. LISA has brought in charter school legal top gun Jess Askew to pitch this as nothing but a couple of grouchy soreheads getting in the way of the superior education of children with their complaints about the nasty traffic snarl that develops in the tight little West Little Rock office park when school lets out in the afternoon.

The school, Lauer reports, has come up with an all-hands-on-deck traffic warden system augmented by private security. It COULD stagger school start and release times, but, no, that would be inconvenient to the school. I mean, really, inconvenience the school just because of a couple of cranky neighbors?

I was most interested in the school's remark that it had been "blind-sided" by the city's enforcement of zoning rules.

Through the wonder of the Internet, you can go back to January 2011 when the Planning Commission approved an expansion for LISA to 600 students. It had to present a detailed plan to qualify for that expansion and it included a great deal of discussion of and accommodation for the traffic that would be generated by a facility serving 600 students. LISA was well aware of planning rules then and traffic needs then. Was it really blind-sided by the city's interest NOW in the fact that it had increased enrollment by almost a third over what had been permitted without first going through the required city planning process? I remain interested in any internal communications at the alleged public school about this expansion plan. Did no one remember the 2011 hearing at which traffic requirements were put in place for 600 students? Maybe LISA was just blind-sided by learning that rules really do apply to them. That's not what charter schools in Arkansas had been accustomed to in their beginning years.

A city planning process in which major facility expansions are approved after the fact is not a planning process at all. But once Jess Askew is done with the City Board at a coming hearing, I'm sure this can be worked out. Maybe Walton charter school lobbyist Luke Gordy can also come down and back Askew up. How can Arkansas have school choice if grouchy neighbors and city hall bureaucrats and laws and petty stuff like that get in the way?

PS — In pinpointing the school on a Google map, I happened to run across a comment about LISA by someone who described herself as an unhappy parent of a former student. Her observations included this remark about the 2011-2012 school year, BEFORE the 190-student expansion.

... Getting in and out is a nightmare. There is no parking, no real traffic control, and the street is full of horrible potholes. ....

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Through the back door with money for home schoolers

Max Brantley — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 07:05:00 -0500

Good story from Rob Moritz of Stephens Media on an underhanded little ol' amendment from Sen. Johnny Key of Mountain Home to open the flood gates of state money to support home schoolers with tax dollars.

State Education Director Tom Kimbrell and others have objected to multiplying the 500-student cap on allowable state funding for the Arkansas Virtual Academy to 5,000 and allow it to move into getting money for high school students. This could put $28 million into a venture that is nothing like a real school.

The virtual acadlemy is styled as a charter school. It began as an offshoot of a scam developed by slot machine junkie Bill Bennett and others. They came up with a private corporation to sell assistance to home schoolers. Then they set about pushing ways to transfer funding equivalent to the amount states spend on conventional public school students to the likes of the Virtual Academy. No gyms. No cafeterias. No full faculties. No buses. Etc. But the same funding that real schools receive for each student enrolled, in Arkansas more than $6,000 per student per year. It makes a voucher system for private church schools, even those teaching magic in place of science, seem positiviely responsible.

Anyone is welcome to home school. Private enterprise is welcome to sell material and support to those who choose to do so. But transfer $6,000-plus a year to enrich operators of this system for each student?

And for what? Results across the country haven't been impressive. A sample bit of commentary from Diane Ravitch, the education who's marked virtual school failures all over the country:

So far, there is not a scintilla of evidence that virtual instruction is good education, at least not in the way it is being sold by its advocates. Test scores are low; graduation rates are low; attrition is high. And why in the world should children in grades K-8 be isolated from any peer interactions during their formative years?

More and more evidence is emerging about the importance of non-cognitive skills, such as the ability to communicate with others and work with others. Can that be learned in isolation?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Morning madness: Notes from all over

Max Brantley — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 06:30:39 -0600

Some morning mail musings:

* THE UNIVERSITY OF MONEY: The University of Arkansas yesterday folded on fighting release of documents about multi-million-dollar overspending in its Advancement Division. It wouldn't admit it was wrong in calling these personnel records. It merely said the affected personnel had agreed to the release. The core of it is that a $340,000-a-year division chief hired 20 people that revenue didn't exist to pay. Spending was heading toward a $5 million deficit before the operation got reined in.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on the released documents this morning. This left me a little sore because I had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for these same documents before the ADG filed the lawsuit that finally dislodged the papers. The UA was going to lose the lawsuit and damn sure didn't want a court precedent on the matter. So they coughed up the documents, but only to the D-G.

So where were the documents I requested? I fired off an e-mail to top flack John Diamond this morning. You could FOI it. I said the university decision to ignore my pending request for the same material in yesterday's release was "chickenshit." UA haughtiness and a devotion to money and power is hardly new (think selling parts of university to wealthy donors and keeping details secret). The more money you have, the more deference you get. Anyway, for your reading pleasure, here are the documents belatedly supplied to me.

* Letter to Democrat-Gazette on the release.

* Related documents:

* Parts One

* and Two

* and Three

* and Four

* and Five.

* EMOTIONAL TIMES: Rep. Mark McElroy, a Democrat from Tillar, was led from the House chamber yesterday after a disjointed speech. He apparently received some medical attention later. I've been unable to make direct contact, but legislative colleagues tell me, whatever the medical condition he suffered, events of recent days had troubled McElroy. I know exactly the feeling. Thursday, McElroy was visibly upset at an unexpected floor fight by Republicans to oppose an effort to allow the Arkansas Career Education Department to seek money to pay for GED tests. Arkansas has always paid the cost of testing people seeking equivalency diplomas. A change in the test is likely going to require an expensive fee increase, which is expected to discourage people from taking the test. Rep. Debra Hobbs of Rogers, particularly, railed against taxpayer help for these people. (She's built quite a record this session of sneering at money for the needy.) McElroy, who told colleagues he had a high school education himself, said he came to the legislature to help poor people. His speech yesterday followed a lengthy opening prayer, which he mentioned in his floor remarks, by Allen Jackson, a pastor of one of the Republican legislators. It's been described as overtly political. He spoke of the "tremendous victories" on anti-abortion and pro-gun bills and offered prayer for those who voted against such legislation. McElroy told colleagues I've spoken with afterward that he viewed prayer as a religious, not political exercise. Normally, you could view some of these happenings on the House video archives, but neither the portion of Thursday's session when the GED fight was waged nor any of yesterday's events are currently available.

UPDATE: I'm informed the videos should all be up by Monday. Thursday a mechanical glitch delayed posting of the GED nonsense. Also, I'm informed Rep. McElroy is receiving treatment at UAMS. Many others have talked to him or heard about the legislative pressure that added to whatever medical condition he's enduring. He's just about the only legislator to lose a bill this session on the floor — having been defeated in an effort to bring elemental fairness (instead of a gift to timber owners) by equalizing the small tax rates assessed to support a local levee district. Republicans wouldn't stand for it, despite committee approval. Then came the stomping of GED test takers and a prayer for the souls of those who believe in a woman's right to choose and resist church as an appropriate place for guns. It's nothing to see when you're feeling poorly. I hope McElroy, with his passion for poor people, returns. Poor folks need every vote they can muster. I'm told he turned in a legislative license plate before leaving Friday and also gave the keys to his car to somebody in Pine Bluff before sticking out his thumb for the rest of the ride to Desha County, where he'd been a successful county judge.

* CHARTER SCHOOL WATCH: Same song, umpteenth verse. The charter schools that succeed — and not all of them do — have an inestimable advantage of committed parents, sometimes committed students and rigid rules that can lead to "out-counseling" for those who don't comply. Real public schools must educate the disengaged and dysfunctional to whatever degree possible. Some charter schools — particularly those with Billionaire Boys Club money — even operate with more money and better facilities. And, now, thanks to Reuters, we know that still more function even further as quasi-private schools:

Charters are public schools, funded by taxpayers and widely promoted as open to all. But Reuters has found that across the United States, charters aggressively screen student applicants, assessing their academic records, parental support, disciplinary history, motivation, special needs and even their citizenship, sometimes in violation of state and federal law.

"I didn't get the sense that was what charter schools were all about - we'll pick the students who are the most motivated? Who are going to make our test scores look good?" said Michelle Newman, whose 8-year-old son lost his seat in an Ohio charter school last fall after he did poorly on an admissions test. "It left a bad taste in my mouth."

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

How best to improve schools

Max Brantley — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:46:25 -0600

How best to improve schools? The Billionaire Boys Club way, by tearing down real public schools and creating dozens or even hundreds of individual school districts in the form of charter schools, virtual schools and private schools powered by public vouchers? Or the way proposed by the Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign, with key ideas shown in the flyer below. See the whole mailing here.

RELATED SCHOOL REFORM NOTES:

* OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY: A story in Tennessee outlines how charter school backers are trying to gut the regulatory law there, as the Waltons and other billionaires are attempting to do in Arkansas. It's about control above all, with quality a secondary issue. From an Education Law Center memo:

The Republican super-majority in the Tennessee legislature introduced legislation to strip away the the power of the school boards in Memphis (Shelby County) and Nashville to authorize charter schools. The power would be moved to a state authority.

This move is retaliation against the Metro Nashville school board, which rejected an application from the Great Hearts charter school academy of Arizona. The school board rejected Great Hearts four times! The problem was that Great Hearts wanted to open in a mostly white, affluent neighborhood and had inadequate plans for student diversity.

In an exposé in the Arizona Republic a few months ago, Great Hearts was singled out for dubious financial self-dealing. ...

Nashville’s insistence on turning down this particular application infuriated State Commissioner Kevin Huffman (whose prior experience is limited solely to TFA). Huffman withheld $3.4 million that the state owed to Nashville. The governor and legislators were angry too that Nashville acted to exercise local control. They are now talking about vouchers.

... Question: why are the Republicans in Tennessee so determined to destroy public education in their state? Has anyone in the state read the research on charters and vouchers? Or are they taking marching orders from ALEC?

Those last questions may be posed in Arkansas, too.

* CHEATING: More from Tennessee to illustrate how power and structure are more important to the billionaires and Republicans than results:

A for-profit school that was hyped by Republican lawmakers as a solution to Tennessee’s education problems recently admitted deleting bad grades to “more accurately recognize students’ current progress.”

...A December email obtained by WTVF showed that Tennessee Virtual Academy’s vice principal instructed middle school teachers to delete “failing grades” from October and September.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

School choice no panacea in New Orleans

Max Brantley — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:18:09 -0600

This finding is truly from the stuck record of reports on education research. Nobody has yet demonstrated that charter schools, school vouchers or any other Billionaire Boys Club flavor of the day has yet demonstrated on any replicable basis that they best real public schools in educating children.

But this finding is particularly important because it comes from a group explicitly supportive of the miracle of "school choice."

NEW ORLEANS — A new report by the Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University that focused on the success of school choice as a policy of educational reform concluded that the current environment of choice, particularly from the perspective of parents, falls short.

The authors of “Spotlight on Choice” wrote “Based on the focus group discussions, we conclude that, due to limited seats at high quality schools and a complicated application process, school choice in New Orleans currently does an inadequate job providing all parents with access to the best schools for their children.”

The 42-page study, released late last month, focuses on the experiences of 81 racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse families representing approximately 132 students.

... Choice is a two-sided coin, said Jill Zimmerman, research manager at the institute and one of the report’s authors. When choice works, and parents indeed have the opportunity to send their kids to a good school, it’s a great concept. But when the choices of great schools are limited, especially in a landscape where 66 percent of schools received either a “D” or an “F” as their latest state-calculated school performance score, it can be very stressful for parents to take on the responsibility of choice, Zimmerman said.

New Orleans has gone to an 80 percent charter model. The experience in Arkansas is much smaller. Some high-quality chart schools, with the help of additional money and tough participation rules that tend to weed out families with kids least likely to succeed, do well. Many more don't. But the Billionaire Boys Club wants to put laxer regulators in charge and open the floodgates on charter school creation in Arkansas. Sympathetic researchers in Louisiana — Louisiana! — suggest that might not be a good idea.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Charter school accountability lacking

Max Brantley — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 06:13:25 -0600

Sen. Jimmy Jeffress passed modest legislation for charter school accountability in 2012. Among others, it required after the first quarter of the year that charter schools file a report with:

1) The number of applications for enrollment received.

2) The number of applicants with a federally defined disability. (One of the knocks on charter schools is that they must bear far less of the added cost of educating disabled students that real public schools.)

3) The number of applications for enrollment the public charter school denied and an explanation of the reason for each denial.

And how was compliance?

You be the judge by perusing the filings here.

You'll find that several didn't report applications from disabled students, citing the excuse that the information wasn't requested on application forms. Convenient.

More interesting is how several charter schools — including eStem and KIPP schools — dodged complying with the law on the number of and reason applications were rejected. eStem's response for its elementary, middle and high schools was that students are placed on a waiting list until spots become available. What? No one was denied admission? I see. They were merely not allowed to attend for the time being, perhaps the entirety of their school career. This looks disingenuous to me. It is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of the law. The KIPP school in Helena provided an equally disingenuous response. On the near-universal failure to report disabled applicants the KIPP school in Blytheville did reveal the number of students with disabilities it admitted after the selection process.

Several schools' reports, including those from LISA, indicated no student was denied admission.

End-of-year reporting under the Jeffress law will require reports on dropouts, expulsions and test scores.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

UPDATE: Beebe pushes for charter school compromise with Walton

Max Brantley — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:03:00 -0600

Buzz increases on a topic I mentioned earlier.

Gov. Mike Beebe, who'd earlier expressed opposition to the Billionaire Boys Club legislation to strip the state Board of Education of the power to regulate charter schools, is now reportedly pushing for a compromise with Jim Walton, the Walmart heir who's leading other wealthy Arkansans in the push for more charter schools.

A coalition of public school advocates, including Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell, had thrown up a roadblock to the Walton legislation in the House. The news now is that Beebe is siding with Walton on getting something passed.

The outline of the new proposal seems to be a codification of an existing charter school review process by Education Department staff members who make reports to the state Board of Education, which is composed of gubernatorial appointees. This would mean the death of the Walton bill to replace charter regulation with a board appointed by legislative leaders (mostly pro-charter Republicans). Pro this idea: It wouldn't change the existing regulatory situation much. Con: Camel's nose in tent. Slippery slope. Waltons aren't known for compromise.

Mostly this issue is an enormous distraction. Pre-K education; after-school work with kids; improving home life; more effective remediation. These are issues with proven worth that could be worked on today, rather than the billionaires' pet education theology, a faith-based idea with little documented results nationally. Why waste time on this? The answer is simple: Money talks.

It's a shame the dickering is being conducted in secrecy. It's a shame it hasn't been accompanied by a public apology from the Waltons' six-figure lobbyist Luke Gordy, who insulted every committed educator in Arkansas the other day by suggesting only the billionaires, not school administrators, care about kids. He presumably would at least exclude those administrators who've hired his wife's educational consulting firm to improve their services to kids in need. And a good job she does, too. Maybe if more people hired her, they'd be spoken of more kindly by Gordy.

Gordy also, by the way, presided as a state Board of Education member over development of a rule that made it difficult for the state to take over a school district for academic deficiencies. He claims such a takeover has never happened. It has several times, but mostly after Luke Gordy left the board to work for the billionaires and the rules were stiffened. Who cares about kids and who cares about money? Good questions.

Sen. Joyce Elliott, who's been the legislative leader of opposition to HB 1040, the Walton charter takeover bill, said the talk of an alternative is omnipresent, but she doesn't know exactly what's being proposed.

"They do not have the votes to pass 1040," she said. "I don't what they're trying to accomplish."

She doesn't sound in a compromising mood. "What was proposed was so onerous and lacked such judgment, how can you assume they'd deal in good faith and do something else that's not as off the chart? How do you take them seriously considering the first proposal?"

UPDATE: Matt DeCample, the governor's spokesman, says what's at work should not be called a "compromise," though it quacks like one to me. Rather, he said, the governor had met with Jim Walton. "They agreed on two things: 1) we do not need to create another bureaucracy to oversee charter schools, and 2) because of the growth of interest in charter schools, the state board spends the majority of its time dealing with charter schools." So Tom Kimbrell, at "the governor's behest," is putting together legislation that would have charter school decisions made first at the staff level in the department. The state Board of Education would then essentially be used as an appeals panel if someone was unhappy with the staff decision. He said details were still being worked out.

This procedure would, presumably, end the charter takeover bill. I've asked Luke Gordy by e-mail, but I'm not holding my breath.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Education notes: Pray for Conway and Teach for America

Max Brantley — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 10:07:08 -0600

A couple of education items;

* CHURCH AND THE CONWAY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: I wrote last night about a new batch of internal documents from the Conway School District relative to Superintendent Greg Murry's effort to continue to allow numerous church groups to visit with school kids at lunch hour. As I mentioned the documents mentioned both an effort to prevent proselytizing and some evidence that it has occurred despite rules to the contrary (a good reason perhaps to think hard about opening campuses to visitors, for religion or other causes, at the lunch hour). But I forgot to put up a link to the documents. Here it is.

* TEACH FOR AMERICA: A CRITIC: Care about public schools, "school reform," the ongoing fight by billionaires to impose their education ideology on schools? I highly recommend this from the Washington Post.

It's a long letter from Gary Rubinstein, a proud Teach for America alumnus who's become something of a critic of some aspects of the program to put bright kids with limited training into schools with desperate needs as teachers. Rubinstein also suggests Teach for America and its leader Wendy Kopp have become unquestioning shills for the billionaires' charter schoocl movement and one-note critics of teachers and their unions. He also challenges the cant about charter schools. Kopp responds.

From Rubinstein:

Over the years I’ve been critical of the TFA training model. It’s not that I don’t think it is possible to train teachers, particularly secondary teachers, in five weeks. It’s just that it has to be a very good five weeks, which I still think it isn’t. The student teaching component is just too short with classes that are just too small. But I still support the idea of alternative certification, and have said so even in my ‘anti-TFA’ NPR interview. I also, unlike many TFA critics, am OK with the two year commitment. Though I’d like it to be upped to three years, I can see that maybe two years lures in some people who could teach for a long time after they get hooked on teaching. So two of the largest criticisms of TFA, the short training and the short commitment are not things that I have been complaining about.

... So it was disappointing to me that the theme of the summit, based on who the featured speakers were, was generally about how charter schools were THE answer and how ‘bad’ teachers and unions are THE problem. (And yes, I know that the people who I’m accusing of saying this would quickly deny that they have said this, but, again, actions speak louder than words.) I saw this mainly in the opening and closing ceremonies, particularly during the ‘Waiting For Superman’ reunion panel. In general, the 20 year event left me with a sour taste in my mouth. It felt like TFA was trying to convey the idea that “We figured it out. Now we just have to scale up,” despite the fact that nobody has really conclusively figured ‘it’ out. This reminded me of George W. Bush’s famous 2003 ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign on the aircraft carrier, eight years before the end of the Iraq war. I don’t see much evidence that anyone has really figured out much. ‘High performing’ charter networks have trouble getting consistency within their own schools. Districts where the ideas of ‘accountability’ and ‘choice’ have thrived have only shown success with some very creative math.

... But for me the thing that bothers me most about these reformers is the dishonesty. In the closing ceremony of the 20 year thing I heard [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan say something about how the decision to shut down a large Chicago High School was justified by the miraculous charter school that took its place. After I got home from the summit I did about ten minutes of fact-checking before I learned that this charter school was far from miraculous as they had about a forty percent dropout rate. This inspired my first post that would be called, I guess ‘anti-reform’ though I really think of it as anti-lying.

... As far as charter schools go, you must also be aware of how much attrition they have. As you are married to one of the top executives in KIPP, I have trouble believing that you don’t know this…. The fact is that most ‘high-performing’ charters are ones that manage to get more motivated kids and families and who lose the less motivated ones throughout the years. And the schools that do have the same kids as the neighborhood ‘failing’ school, those schools often have test scores that are extremely low too.

There's lots more. You might prefer Kopp's response, in which she disagrees point by point. It's a dialogue at least. It's not the sort of thing you'll hear when the billionaires hold their self-selected dog-and-pony shows in Arkansas. To insulting six-figure Walton lobbyist Luke Gordy, all real public school employees are self-interested hacks who care only about their paychecks, not kids. The billionaires (several of whom have never put a kid's foot in a public school) are the only people who really care about kids.

Rubinstein's blog has lots of stuff worth considering.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Jeb Bush: Corporate influence peddler on schools

Max Brantley — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:37:30 -0600

Speaking of Jeb Bush, in Little Rock today promoting the Billionaire Boys Club school privatization agenda:

I wish the following news conference had been held this morning.

Corporate Interests Pay to Play to Shape State Education Policy, Reap Profits
Emails Show Bush-Led Organization’s ALEC-Like Role in State Policymaking

Emails between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), founded and chaired by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and state education officials show that the foundation is writing state education laws and regulations in ways that could benefit its corporate funders. Education advocates will host a press call TOMORROW, January 30th at 1:30pm EST to discuss these findings.

The emails, obtained through public records requests, reveal that the organization, sometimes working through its Chiefs For Change affiliate, wrote and edited laws, regulations and executive orders, often in ways that improved profit opportunities for the organization’s financial backers.

The emails conclusively reveal that FEE staff acted to promote their corporate funders’ priorities, and demonstrate the dangerous role that corporate money plays in shaping our education policy. Correspondence in Florida, New Mexico, Maine, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Louisiana paint a graphic picture of corporate money distorting democracy.

Please join us at 1:30pm EST on Wednesday, January 30 to learn more about how FEE staff is involved in shaping state education policy in order to benefit its corporate funders.

In the Public Interest will announce the new digital housing for all of the emails, which is accessible to parents, reporters, and the general public.

Corporate money shape education policy? Surely not in Arkansas. That panel underway at the noon hour featuring Jim Walton, Bill Dillard III, Claiborne Deming and Walter Hussman is just a bunch of humble grassroots activists. Their paid lobbyists, Luke Gordy and Laurie Lee? The Walton-funded school of "education reform" at the UA? The Walton-funded Public School Resource Center (which also enjoys public support)? The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity? All the campaign contributions to Republican majorities on legislative education committees? More greenery. But I'm not talking about grass.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

UPDATE: The charter school bandwagon arrives

Max Brantley — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:52:07 -0600

Just in time for the charter school rally to be led this morning by Walmart billionaire Jim Walton and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter Hussman, among others, comes a timely news article from, where else, the Democrat-Gazette, on Arkansas's fall in ranking by a charter school advocacy group.

The group emphasizes that Arkansas has fallen to 25th in its ranking of beneficial climate for these quasi-private schools run with public tax dollars. But that's mostly because other states, under the sway of similar fatcat lobbying efforts, have gotten even charter friendlier.

Not to worry, the anti-public school group has a recipe for improving Arkansas's charter school stature that — another coincidence! — happens to be a mirror image of the Walton plan for making another big leap forward in this legislative session toward the privatization of American education. Some of the legislation has already been introduced. More to come.

The group noted that Arkansas could improve its ranking by "creating additional authorizing options, increasing operational autonomy, ensuring equitable operational funding and equitable access to capital funding and facilities, and enacting statutory guidelines for relationships between public charter schools and educational service providers."

More charter schools. Less state oversight. State tax dollars to build buildings, even if they duplicate existing buildings in many Arkansas communities. "Guidelines for educational service providers?" I'm guessing that isn't to facilitate contractual relationships with school teachers.

UPDATE: Twitter photos from the school rally show about 150 people, counting press and assorted bystanders, at the Capitol rotunda this morning. This, after robocalls, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette advertising, incessant Twitter and Facebook messaging, mail appeals and more. The Walton billions haven't fully fertilized the grassroots just yet, apparently.

UPDATE II: David Koon reports on the morning rally. Bush invoked the 1957 school crisis at Central High.

I wish the goal was achieved when those children attended their first class. unfortunately it was not. Inequality just became easily hidden and therefore overlooked, hidden in low-income neighborhoods .... We allowed this to happen because of the soft bigotry of low expectations as my brother talked about.

He said access to quality education was the "civil rights issue of our time." He talked glowingly of the KIPP charter schools in the Delta. "Schools like KIPP show what is possible and they provide depressing evidence of how millions of children have been left behind over the years because they weren't afforded the same opportunities."

He said he hopes people of Arkansas would send a message to "the masters of delay and deferral." Choose, he said. "You have a choice. You can either help the politically powerful groups or you can help the next generation of Americans." Waltons and Bushes are not the politically powerful to whom he referred, of course. Presumably he referred to teacher groups.

UPDATE III: I'm hearing that a centerpiece of the Billionaire Boys Club agenda — to strip the state Board of Education of regulatory authority over charter schools — is running into stout opposition in the House. Despite all the money and all the tub-thumping and all the campaign spending, it turns out others with interest in schools, particularly people in the ground in small school districts, know how to reach the ears of legislators, too. They'll be talking at a news conference Wednesday afternoon by the Arkansas Opportunity to Learn Campaign.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Charter school rally participant not ready to back law change

Max Brantley — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:03:00 -0600

I'd mentioned previously the Billionaire Boys Club and their charter school pep rally at the Capitol next week. Jeb Bush will join such private school/charter school supporters as Jim Walton, Walter Hussman and Bill Dillard at a rally meant to promote the billionaires' school package. (Interesting that Claiborne (Murphy Oil) Deming isn't on the roster, though he'd been listed previously. He shouldn't be. His great effort to help El Dorado public schools is imperiled by the unfettered public school transfer law the Walton billions are backing.

A key speaker will be one of the subsidized faculty members the Waltons have installed at the so-called school of education "reform" at Walton University in Fayetteville. Jeb Bush will lend this support for doing in Arkansas what's been done in Florida (scandal after scandal in charter schools and scant education progress, to name two).

But enough of my usual.

I noticed that Jim Cooper of Melbourne, chairman of the state Board of Education, is on the panel. The billionaires want to jerk control of charter school approval and regulation from the hands of the state board and put it in the hands of a board controlled by appointees of the Republican (read bilionaires') controlled Arkansas Legislature.

Dioes his presence mean Cooper supports the legislation? I've said before that he and other current members of that board, including numerous charter school advocates, have done a fair and tough job in recent years in approving some charter schools and rejecting others. The rejections seem to stick in the billionaires' craw, however.

I talked to Cooper this morning.

He said he has some conflicts on Tuesday and he said he also had concerns about appearing on the panel if it were interpreted as a political statement. He said he'd agreed only to appear as an "objective" participant to talk about the board's work in the past and future. He said he wasn't prepared to speak for or against any of the billionaires' school package — easier approval of charter schools, state construction funding for charter schools, virtually unlimited transfers between school districts and perhaps easing of teacher licensure rules, among others.

Does Cooper think the Board is doing a good job now in regulation of charter schools?

"I think they are doing a good job. Obviously, we may have made mistakes through the years. There may have been some that got through that shouldn't have, but many were turned down and rightfully so."

He added that it had been time-consuming and hard work for the board. But, "I feel pretty comfortable with the way I've voted through the years."

He said he didn't want to compromise his objectivity as board chairman by participation next week. "I may have to think hard about that the next few days."

UPDATE: I also asked Rep. James McLean, a Democrat, if his participation constituted an endorsement of the billionaires' agenda:

No sir. I am interested in listening to everybody and finding out as much as I can about all viewpoints

NEWS RELEASE

A+ Arkansas announced today it will host an Education Rally and Summit in conjunction with National School Choice Week, on Tuesday, January 29, 2013, in Little Rock. The Rally will begin at 9:15 a.m. at the Arkansas State Capitol Rotunda and will feature keynote speaker Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida from 1999-2007 and chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, as well as Mr. Jim Walton, Chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group Inc.

Immediately following the Rally at 11:30 a.m., A+ Arkansas will host an Education Summit at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Little Rock. This event includes a free lunch for those who RSVP at info@aplusarkansas.org and panel discussions by teachers, administrators, business leaders, educational experts and policymakers.

Dr. Patrick J. Wolf is professor and 21st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions. Wolf will join parents, educators, business leaders and policymakers to discuss the education crisis facing Arkansas. Attendees will also have the opportunity to play an active role in the discussion during Q&A sessions throughout the summit.

"The research record is strong: parental school choice improves outcomes for students, parents, and the broader community,” Wolf stated.

Previously, Wolf taught at Georgetown and Columbia University. As principal investigator of the School Choice Demonstration Project, he is leading the impact evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program through a contract with the U.S. Department of Education (subcontract with Westat) and is overseeing a national research team conducting an independent longitudinal multi-method evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

Other Speakers include:

Walter Hussman- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of WEHCO Media, Inc. 
Bill Dillard- CEO Dillards
John Bacon- Chief Executive Officer, eStem Public Charter Schools
Michele Linch- Executive Director Arkansas State Teachers Association
Jim Cooper- Chairman of the State Board of Education
Leslie Hiner- Vice President of Programs & State Relations at Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice 
Arkansas State Representative Mark Biviano (R)
Arkansas State Representative James McLean (D)
Arkansas State Senator Johnny Key (R)
Georgia State Representative Alisha Morgan (D)
T. Willard Fair- Chief Executive Officer of the Urban League of Greater Miami, Inc.
Angela F. Shirey- Teach For America Director of Development
Virginia Walden Ford- Executive Director of Arkansas Parent Network
Luke Gordy — Executive Director of the Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

What, exactly, is wrong with the state Board of Education?

Max Brantley — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:35:29 -0600

The mention of charter schools in the last item reminded me:

I mentioned before that the Billionaire Boys Club bill to strip the state Board of Education of its power to approve and regulate charter schools had been introduced by Republican Rep. Mark "Bourbon and Bacon" Biviano. No one has yet offered a specific reason for creating an expensive and duplicative new piece of state bureacracy to replace a gubernatorially appointed body that has, particularly in recent years, demonstrated integrity and care in the task of reviewing charter schools.

The problem seems to be that the Board doesn't approve every single application and occasonally calls down schools that haven't lived up to their promises. Who knows what the problem is? The Billionaires don't talk to the public, only to their camp followers and rented lawmakers.

But I should elaborate on my mention earlier that the state Board of Education is not exactly a hotbed of anti-charter sentiment. A recent past chairman, Naccaman Williams, actually worked for the Walton Family Foundation, which has spent a billion and counting on schoool "reform", not counting separate Walton family political expenditures, while voting on charter applications.

Vicki Saviers of Little Rock was a founder of the eStem charter school in Little Rock, one of the most richly financed of the billionaires' projects. Joe Black of Newport works for Southern Bancorp, whose activities include support and financing of charter schools around the state. Jim Cooper of Melbourne has served on the board of one of the lobby groups, the Public School Resource Center, created by the billionaires to promote their school agenda. Saviers also has been a board member of the billionaires' lobby group, Arkansans for Education Reform, headed by richly paid lobbyist Luke Gordy, himself a former member of the state Board of Education. Board member Alice Mahony runs the El Dorado education foundation financed by Murphy Oil money, a key part of the billionaires' pro-charter coalition. What's not to like about these good people?

Finally, on the hypocrisy beat (a grueling task in the days of the new Republican majority), we have Prissy Hickerson, one of the legislative co-sponsors of the board of education-stripping legislation. She joined a group from her hometown of Texarkana a few years ago in urging state Board of Education denial of a charter school application in Texarkana. Her successful mission is believed to underlie some of the billionaires' unhappiness with the state board.

Could it be that the current nine-member group of regulators is tough, fair-minded and, the record shows, quite receptive on balance to establishment and continuation of charter schools? Could it be that the billionaires think that appointees of the Republican majority- and billionaire-controlled legislature who'd make up the new charter school commission (four of five would be legislative appointees) would be far more pliable?

Duh.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Billionaires' bill filed to strip state Education Board of charter school review

Max Brantley — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:43:33 -0600

The long-expected bill originating from the Billionaire Boys Club to strip the state Board of Education of its oversight of charter school applications and performance was filed today.

Of all people, the lead sponsor was Searcy's Rep. Mark "Bourbon and Bacon" Biviano, the terror of Markham Street traffic. Who knew of his interest in public schools? The bill has 29 sponsors in the House. All Republicans.

The state Board of Education has turned down some charter applications and noted when some existing charters have failed to live up to their early promises. This is unacceptable to the Waltons and their running dogs, like former Education Board member Luke Gordy, who makes a fat salary lobbying for them. Approve 'em and keep 'em coming is their philosophy.

Ironically, this legislation would neuter a board that devotes a powerful amount of time to the whole of Arkansas education and includes a founding board member of the eStem charter school and a banker for charter schools. The Waltons would put the legislature they helped elect in charge. The five-member commission would have a gubernatorial appointee, one from the House speaker and one from the president pro tem of the Senates (both Republican) and one each from the chairs of the House and Senate education committees (one Democrat and one Republican, but a Republican majority in both cases).

Have the Waltons or anyone else explained what's broken about the current system that requires this "fix"? They have not. Don't hold your breath.

PS — Do I really need to mention that the party of smaller government here would create a brand new, additional branch of government? Another layer of bureaucracy with which to "streamline" education?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Judge keeps state in desegregation case; rules against Little Rock School District's fight against charter schools

Max Brantley — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:11:32 -0600

Federal Judge D. Price Marshall today denied the state's motion to be dismissed from all obligations under the 1989 settlement of the Pulaski County school desegregation case.

Instead, he ordered a hearing on that question. He cited a number of developments in the state's favor — two districts declared unitary, significant sums spent, the Lakeview school ruling. But he also noted arguments from the Little Rock side — on lack of state monitoring and on lack of state work to end the achievement gap between black and white students. Here's the ruling on that question. The parties are supposed to submit a schedule by Feb. 22 on discovery, briefs and the evidentiary hearing.

In the short run, that maintains the status quo on continued state support for desegregation here. That means any hope the legislature might have to capture that spending for other purposes has been delayed to some more distant point.

Judge Marshall, however, made another critical ruling. He held that the state's approval of open enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County didn't constitute a breach of its 1989 promise to not contribute to segregation in the county.

In a 30-page ruling, he said "no reasonable fact finder could conclude that the State is in material breach of the parties' 1989 Settlement Agreement as to open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County."

Here's the text of the ruling.

Said LRSD spokeswoman Pamela Smith:

We just learned of the ruling and have spoken with our attorneys. They have not had a chance to review/study the ruling, however, we are planning to have a public discussion about it at the next board meeting.

Said Chris Heller, the district's lawyer, on his reaction:

Disappointed. We wouldn't have filed the motion if we didn't think we had a good case so we're disappointed not to have the opportunity for a trial. I only had time to read the orders once before I had to drive to Fayetteville but I've made plans to meet with Dr. Holmes on Wednesday and asked to be on the agenda to discuss the situation with the Board on Thursday.

Re charter schools: Judge Marshall is a heckuva judge. If he says no reasonable fact-finder could argue that charter schools breach the 1989 agreement, that's an opinion worth respecting. But no reasonable fact-finder could deny that open enrollment charter schools have skimmed middle income and white students from the Little Rock School District as a whole, particularly at the middle school level, and thus made it harder to desegregate those schools. As a matter of law, that might be irrelevant. His analysis focused on charter schools and the interdistrict magnet schools financed by the 1989 agreement. It IS a matter of fact in daily schoool business, however, though I'd concede a lot of these students would have gone elsewhere (private schools for example) absent the charter schools. Or so it seems to me. The judge, however, concluded that the charters had had very little, if any, impact on desegregation, on the magnet schools or on majority-to-minority transfer programs.

To the extent that overall racial percentages and magnet enrollment haven't changed greatly, that's true. In practical terms, it isn't. An inner city middle school magnet like Dunbar, which lost many students to charters, is a good example of the direct impact. The judge looked only at direct losses from magnets to charters, not the universe of potential students lost to the charters and the sorts of students those were, though he does note that charter students tend to be better off economically than Little Rock students and the transfer group was whiter than the Little Rock District as a whole. This is particularly true in some coveted, well-financed charter schools with predominant white and middle class enrollments.

Still, there's no doubt, as the judge notes, the 1989 agreement didn't mention charter schools. They didn't exist then, after all. But he also rejected the argument that creation of charter schools — independent school districts in function and fact under state law — were analogous to the creation of a separate Jacksonville school district, something the court has prohibited until the deseg case is completed with all districts unitary. He said state funding for desegregation wasn't guaranteed for Little Rock, in any case, but for any school, including the newer charters. The explicit state commitment to six interdistrict magnet schools does not bar open-enrollment charter schools that function as magnets themselves, he said.

The judge noted that Little Rock went nine years without objecting to the charters in court. It's irrelevant, he said, that the district HAD protested many of the charter applications at the state Board of Education because of impact on desegregation. He said this was not the same thing as arguing in court that the settlement had been violated. The district should have spoken up sooner, he said. The judge also said the state had an obligation under law to consider desegregation impact; had vowed to do so and failure there was a state issue. This is another sad part of this story. The state Board of Education now takes this responsibility seriously. In the beginning, it did not. Early charters were located in white majority neighborhoods and, unsurprisingly, attracted white majority student bodies, despite promises to seek greater diversity.

Many more charter school applications are waiting in the wings. And, if the wealthy tycoons financing the charter movement have their way, they'll soon have control of the state approval process. No matter. Judge Marshall has ruled the charter school issue has been decided for good. It is a day of celebration for the Waltons and charter school advocates. The Little Rock School District now must consider the future and much more than whether to file a pro forma appeal of this decision.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Morning report: Chicken, pot pie and bleep variety

Max Brantley — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 06:52:10 -0600

Some morning moments:

* WHY DIDN'T SKIP RUTHERFORD THINK OF THIS? An item in D magazine reports that the director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library being built in Dallas is using free chicken pot pie ($4.99 typically) from the Highland Park Cafeteria to lure people to a program on the coming facility. W loves the pot pie apparently. Franke's and free eggplant casserole anyone? I'd go to a goat roping for a free bucket of it.

* CHICKEN BLEEP: Leslie Newell Peacock earlier reported the continued theater of the tech park site selection process. Charles Dilks, the consultant picked by Little Rock real estate developer Dickson Flake — and Flake, and Tech Authority Chair Mary Good and her reliable echo chamber, Death Star Bob Johnson — couldn't be clearer. They believe knocking down acres of a lower-income residential neighborhood lying between UAMS and UALR is the obvious choice for this taxpayer-financed, speculative, chamber of commerce pipe dream. Were all the protestations of city board members that neighborhoods will be preserved merely election season posturing, certain to give way to regretful harrumphing when the board reluctantly accepts the guidance of expert Dilks and decides to mow down dozens of homes in the name of microtuning an office building without, yet, a dime of private investment or potential private occupant with a good idea? City Director Ken Richardson wants some assurances in the form of an ordinance that tax money won't be used to take people's homes. The rest of the City Board's refusal to give homeowners that protection fairly shouts at the sincerity of the likes of Joan Adcock and Co. I still think the fix is in.

* CHICKEN DANCE: Oh, OK, that's a stretch of a headline. The Central High School marching band is more likely to play "On You Tigers" than the chicken dance in the Obama Presidential Inaugural Parade, but it is going to play music. It is still short of the $100,000 it needs to make the trip. Take a donation between 12 and 4 p.m. today to the Central High Visitors Center at Daisy Bates and Park. Or go here for other spots to make contributions as well as a link for on-line contributions.

* SIMPLY CHICKEN: There's a new group calling itself A Plus Arkansas, a name used to great effect by a wonderful nonprofit that promotes the arts in school but expropriated greedily (OK, chickenbleep applies again here) by the Billionaire Boys Club-financed charter school juggernaut in Arkansas.

I note this morning that the billionaires have a dog-and-pony show coming up at the Capitol Jan. 29. Ringmaster Luke Gordy, who knocks down six figures in Walton cash lobbying for them, will present a "forum" on "education reform." Speaking participants:

Former Fla. Gov. (and political dynasty heir) Jeb Bush, Walmart heir Jim Walton, media empire heir Walter Hussman, department store heir Bill Dillard III and oil fortune heir Claiborne (Murphy Oil) Deming. I don't think you'll be finding much diversity of viewpoint in this little summit. What? Are they afraid of somebody who might challenge some of their talking points? They could afford Dianne Ravitch. Why not bring her in for a little counterpoint, Luke?

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Waltons expand political push on school measures

Max Brantley — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:38:08 -0600

Wow, when the Walton family — which has put more than $1 billion into "education reform" through its foundation and spent untold millions more in separate political activties — indicates it's going to increase its political effort it's time for political opponents to build a bomb shelter.

Letter from Buddy Philpott, direct of the Walton Family Foundation says:

The Walton Family Foundation is driven by the urgent need to dramatically raise student achievement, particularly in low-income neighborhoods across our nation. Our board and staff are proud of how we’ve helped cultivate today’s education reform movement by investing more than $1 billion in initiatives that expand parental choice and equal opportunity in education.

As our board reflects on the movement’s recent gains and momentum, they see many new and compelling opportunities to help accelerate the pace of reform. In order to make the most of those opportunities, the board has decided to further expand its leadership role in education reform. Here’s what is taking place:

* Several Walton family members are increasing their individual engagement in both philanthropic and political endeavors related to improving K-12 education. All political activity will be conducted separate and outside of the foundation operations.

* As a result, the family will be expanding its staff capacity to guide and manage its increasing role in education reform.

As part of the process to strengthen the family’s leadership role, Jim Blew, who has advised on the foundation’s K-12 education reform team since 2005, will focus on working directly with individual Walton family members to implement some specific philanthropic projects. Separately, he will execute a political strategy to maximize the current momentum for reform.

* As Jim takes on this important new role, the foundation is initiating a nationwide search for a Director of K-12 Education Reform. The search is being led by Russell Reynolds Associates, and all inquiries regarding the position may be directed to Walton@RussellReynolds.com. We anticipate that several outstanding candidates will show strong interest in the director’s position. We are also looking for talented individuals to fill several other positions on our education reform team. For more information on these opportunities, please visit www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about/job-openings.

Applicants must believe that unions are bad; vouchers are good; charter schools are good and mustn't be subject to the same scrutiny as conventional public schools; standardized test scores are to be taken as gospel; democratically elected school boards are bad for education; state education boards that take charter school applications seriously must be sidestepped and new agencies created that don't take the review so seriously; public universities must teach this dogma and reject countervailing views, and, finally, might makes right.

For a relative pittance, the Walton family has rented sufficient Arkansas legislators to control committees that generally determine the fate of school legislation in Arkansas. It has funded multiple private organizations to carry this message around the state, such as Arkansans for Education Reform. It has expropriated the name, A Plus Arkansas, of a devoted nonprofit organization working to teach arts in the school, for its own purposes and refused to relinquish it. That's the Walton way. Money doesn't just talk, it shouts. And now they're going to spend more on politics? Whew. I guess the new legislature could just outsource the whole damn public school system to Bentonville and be done with it.

HOWEVER: John Brummett Twitters that Gov. Mike Beebe fielded a charter school question. With the Walton forces spoiling to end state regulation of charters and explode the numbers he reportedly says if something isn't broke, why fix it? Hmmmm.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

UPDATE: Hormel Foods buys Skippy Peanut Butter for $700 million

Max Brantley — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 09:14:34 -0600

Bloomberg reports Hormel's acquisition of Skippy Peanut Butter, which has one of two production facilities major in Little Rock, from Unilever for $700 million.

Unclear at this moment on impact on Little Rock. Skippy was made at two plants, Little Rock and in China. Hormel said it was making the acquisition to expand its own business in China.

Hormel news release doesn't specifically mention plans for Little Rock if the deal receives regulatory approval.

The plant is in the Little Rock Port Industrial Park. I toured it once many years ago for a feature for the Arkansas Gazette: "When it comes to peanut butter, Little Rock spreads it on thick." The warm smell of roasting peanuts is my main memory.

UPDATE: This just in from Hormel (as well as this fact sheet):

"Hormel Foods intends to maintain current operations at the plant in Little Rock and welcomes the employees there to the Hormel Foods team."

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Ravitch: Does Arkansas want two school systems?

Leslie Newell Peacock — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:51:18 -0600

NYU professor and former charter-school-supporter-turned-critic Diane Ravitch tells KUAF's Ozarks at Large reporter Jacqueline Froelich that Arkansas's experience with segregation should be a lesson in what's wrong with having two school systems — public schools, which must educate all comers, and public charter schools. Even Gary Ritter, head of the Walton-backed Department of Education Reform at the U of A, says it's a problem that charter populations seldom include children who live in poverty and dysfunctional families. Times senior editor Max Brantley is also part of Froelich's interview, aired yesterday on KUAF. Listen here.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The new Arkansas legislature: Money is bipartisan

Max Brantley — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:31:20 -0600

OK, things ARE different in Arkansas in the party politics realm.

Stephens Media profiles the new Republican leaders of the Arkansas legislature - Sen. Michael Lamoureux and Rep. Davy Carter - and features their professed willingness to work "across the aisle" with Democrats.

They are dealmakers, it's true. But any notion that they signal a moderate legislature should be put to bed before the new General Assembly convenes in January. The Democratic majority was pretty conservative to begin with, but it will seem moderate by comparison. Hard to imagine Arkansas could get more conservative than it already is on guns, abortion and discrimination against gay people, but just wait. And Republicans are coming with Voter ID laws

All of these things aren't necessarily partisan issues. The big money has already bought bipartisan support on some key issues - for example, charter schools and other so-called "education reform." The Walton money will, for example, probably take control of charter school oversight from the state Board of Education (it's doing too good a job), likely through a new, far more political appointed group attuned to Billionaire Boys Club wishes. Pending, too, is a so-called parental trigger law to allow a vote of parents to essentially take over a school they believe to be failing. Panacea? Not hardly. From The New Republic:

Plenty of evidence questions the wisdom of replacing public schools with charter schools. One study, from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, found that 83 percent of charter schools fared worse or no better than their public school counterparts in producing academic gains. Trigger efforts have also failed to work so far. Only two California schools have been subject to trigger petitions; one effort failed, another remains tangled in the courts. The laws have also been criticized for offering ill-defined options to parents: just because parents want their children to attend a charter over a public school, that doesn’t mean that charter schools will welcome the opportunity to teach their children, who may be several grades behind their peers.

Others are troubled by the backers of parent trigger laws. After Ben Austin, a California charter school overseer, dreamed up the original proposal, the idea was seized upon and propagated by the American Legislative Exchange Council—better known as ALEC, the model legislation giant behind the controversial “stand your ground” laws—and the Heartland Institute—notorious, of late, for comparing believers in climate change to the Unabomber. Both organizations have disseminated model parent trigger laws. (As pointed out by Center for Media and Democracy member Mary Bottari, the Heartland Institute’s bill notably allows parents to trigger a school’s transformation whether or not it’s failing.)
This money takeover of state legislatures by right-wingers is happening all over.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Water main break forces eStem school closure

Max Brantley — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:19:46 -0600

EStem closed its downtown schools this morning because of a water main break on Louisiana Street, shown in the photo the school supplied above.

The school will decide by noon whether it can reopen on Friday.

UPDATE: With water service still out, the school was forced to cancel Friday classes.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Required reading on education reform

Max Brantley — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:23:32 -0600

The New Yorker has a major article out on Diane Ravitch, who's moved from school "reformer" to the soul of the opposition against the billionaires' movement to privatize public education.

Unfortunately, only an abstract is available. I could wish the newly rented Arkansas legislature would get a copy and read it before rubberstamping the Walton/Stephens/Murphy/Hussman lobby's legislative agenda, but no point cluttering up their work with facts on the other side. In short:

Ravitch argues that the reform movement is driven by an exaggerated negative critique of the schools, and that it is mistakenly imposing a free-market ethos of competition on an institution that, if it is to function well, requires coöperation, sharing, and mentoring.

The "reform" movement also - by division of community resources, cream-skimming, playing on prejudice and other means - promotes segregation by class and race, depresses teacher pay, puts publicly financed schools beyond the accountability afforded by democratic oversight and creates a marked divide between winners and losers. Oh, and most of the research shows that, despite some individual examples to the contrary, charter schools generally don't produce better results than conventional public schools among similar populations. I know. Don't confuse Republican legislators with facts.

Maybe the University of Walton in Fayetteville could bring her in for a debate with its Walton-financed "reform" faculty, which, coincidentally, gins out propaganda for the Walton "reform" movement.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Charter school money talks in Washington, Arkansas

Max Brantley — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:04:29 -0600

Diane Ravitch comments on the success, on their fourth try, by wealthy charter school backers to pass a law opening the way to more charter schools in Washington state.

She links to a report on who put up the $10 million to pass the law. It includes $1.7 million from Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune built by her father.

It reminds me again about how cheap it is to buy Arkansas. Maybe $2 million bought an Arkansas Republican majority in this year's election.

Much, much less than that was spent by Waltons and other billionaire backers and their agents to buy majorities on critical Arkansas education committees in 2010.

The charterizing of public schools in Arkansas with complete absence of proof of the superiority of the concept and plenty of proof of the perils of lack of accountability for the functional equivalent of publicly funded private schools will come in a torrent in 2013. That's a given.

The only unanswered question is whether a few Republicans, though wholly beholden to the Billionaire Boys Club, will be able with a straight face to say they believe in accountability while stripping accountability from the charter school process by taking regulatory power from the state Board of Education.

The state Board has approved charter schools left and right, but not every single charter school. And it has begun demanding performance on promises from existing charter schools. The billionaires' lackeys and they are everywhere, from the the Walton-controlled University of Arkansas to the Walton-controlled University of Central Arkansas to the private lobbying group they established in Little Rock don't like such rigorous oversight one bit. For example: The Board denied a LISA Academy expansion in Little Rock when a Board member noted that the school after drawing a whiter and more economically privileged student body than the surrounding public school district wasn't demonstrating academic performance any better than conventional public schools.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Outcome-based education legislation, Republican style

Max Brantley — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:30:07 -0600

We go to press this week before the election so I was working on a column about how some things will remain the same in Arkansas regardless of how the election turns out. Might as well share the gist of it now.

For example: Education. The Billionaire Boys Club bought significant legislative control in 2010 and the result was a loosening of the charter school law in 2011, with a floating cap that automatically increases each time a cap is hit. But that still wasn't enough for the Walton-Stephens-Murphy-Hussman combine that seeks to wreck universal public education with a crazy quilt of "choice" programs that will create some winners and a lot of losers, particularly in urban areas like Little Rock.

The Walton money is in play again this election season, primarily in behalf of a Republican majority because Republican Party dogma has always supported private school vouchers, tax money for home schoolers and more charter schools where favored economic classes can flee people not like them. But there are Democrats on board this train already, too. And the completion of the Walton agenda is in the offing.

A plan is underway to loosen still further charter school restrictions. In a Walton-perfected world, there'd be no cap on charter school establishment. Fly-by-night profiteers with no track record and scant financial backing would be allowed to freely enter the education field here with tax money. Someday, in the great by and by, if they fail, they'd be shut down. The children schooled in these failed institutions would just be collateral damage.

Sen. Michael Lamoureux, who'll lead the Senate if Republicans have a majority and who'll be part of a charter school majority vote no matter which party is in power, was quoted in the Democrat-Gazette over the weekend as saying charter-school supporters don’t believe that the current process for considering proposed charter schools is “very fair,” but he doesn’t know what “the exact solution would be.”

I asked him what was unfair about the current system. We have perhaps the most diverse, most diligent state Board of Education of my 40 years in Arkansas. Its membership includes black people, white people, a Latina activist, former legislators and a pillar of the Little Rock charter school movement. It has rigorously reviewed both charter school applications and the performance of existing charter schools. It has been generally supportive of charters (and tough on failing conventional public schools), but it has rejected some charter expansions and some new applications, always for cogently expressed reasons. What's not to like? We could wish that the Game and Fish Commission, to name one, had such a healthy representation of viewpoints and dealt so fully, openly and earnestly with competing philosophies on the field it regulates.

Lamoureux's response:

"I guess by unfair I mean, we are not getting the desired result."

Wow. That's an honest answer.

Republicans don't want facts. They don't want fairness. They don't want due diligence. They want "results." Meaning, they want their way. Or the way of the fatcats who bankroll them.

I asked Luke Gordy, the well-paid Walton lobbyist who oversees multiple efforts to enforce the Walton way on Arkansas public schools (including an outfit that expropriates the good name of a non-ideological school organization), for an outline of the new charter school enabling legislation. No dice. The Walton idea of transparency does not include that, apparently, except with friendly legislators.

I pressed Lamoureux on whether he thought the state Board of Education review was somehow flawed or unnecessary. He responded to my specific question that there should be a review on finances, track record and the like.

Yes, those issues should be considered.

I think proponents feel the process is not yielding desired results.

I do not know all the details.

Who needs details? It's enough to know the Waltons are unhappy with results so far.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]