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Friday, June 30, 2006 - 21:08:35
And just because ..
... why not an open line?
We had a neighborhood party tonight, welcoming, among others, a new UAMS intern who helped respirate dying patients with a hand pump at the VA hospital in New Orleans almost a year ago during a week in which he was stranded in Katrina's waters. He's repeating his internship year here. We think he's up to the task.
Viva Memphis
Don't know about you. But I gotta admit the Japanese prime minister's visit to Graceland -- pilgrimage is more like it -- was a hoot. And probably good for his host, G.W. Bush.
The theocrats weigh in
I don't think much commentary is necessary when the Southern Baptist Convention weighs in, disapprovingly, on a Supreme Court decision related to our handling of prisoners at Guantanamo.
The release from Richard Land is on the jump. Read it and cry the beloved country if these guys gain control.
Document dump: Pulaski schools
Friday afternoon of an already-begun long holiday weekend is the perfect time to drop a giant report, isn't it? We just picked up hundreds of pages of work by William Gordon Associates of Saluda, N.C., which reported to the state Education Department on questions concerning Pulaski County school districts, as ordered by the 2005 legislature.
Should the financially troubled Pulaski County Special District continue to exist? (Answer: Yes.)
Is there a way to end desegregation litigation? (Answer: Yes.)
Is there a way for the state to stop spending money on Pulaski schools? (Answer: Yes.)
Some quick takes, all taken from the consultants' report. The Education Department itself is reserving judgment until after the holiday.
* It's a bad idea to combine everything north of the Arkansas River into one district. Difficult to manage and NLR would lose its strong sense of community.
* Two districts north of the river -- an expanded NLR district and a Jacksonville district -- is more appealing to the consultants.
* "There is logic" to expanding Little Rock School District to cover all the territory south of the river.
* BUT: No reorganization is legally feasible given the current status of desegregation litigation. Plus, the troubled Pulaski district would carry obligations that would be hard for other districts to assume. Plus, Pulaski won't work to get out of court if it thinks that would then be an excuse for the legislature to vote it out of existence.
* SO ... The consultants suggest that all three districts should push for unitary status, which the consultants believe they've achieved, with an assurance given to the Pulaski district that it would continue to exist.
* THEN Create a Jacksonville school district.
* End majority-to-minority student transfers among the three districts. And phase out state funding for such transfers.
* Continue LR magnet schools for countywide use to encourage diversity in LR.
* Provide equality in course offerings at all schools.
* Emphasize school choice and targeted recruitment to increase diversity in school enrollments.
* A five-year phaseout of state deseg funding for the three existing school districts and the new Jacksonville district. The consultants said this should be adequate "in making the transition to self-sufficiency and ending the state's desegregation funding obligations."
All this was not so easily said nor will it be easily done. Legislation would be necessary. State leadership would be necessary. Support from the intervenors led by civil rights lawyer John Walker would be important.
Happy holiday. But we'll be around through the weekend and Monday, even though it looks like few others plan much work until Wednesday.
Stick it to students
The Campaign for America's Future says that a huge jump in interest rates in college loan programs will really stick it to those borrowing to go to college. In Arkansas, it reports, students will have to pay $1,981 to $2,683 more for their college loans thanks to the rise. The Republican Congress refused proposals to soften this blow. It doesn't have much money to throw around because it wants to give billions away by ending the estate tax Let the college kids pay for Welfare for Waltons. If they're lucky sperms, they could be billionaires someday, too.
News release on jump.
Huckagoguing
The only surprise is that it took the governor a full 24 hours to join the gay-bashing chorus on the Supreme Court ruling on foster parents yesterday. But he clearly got his quote from the same talking point factory other Republicans have used. The chant is that the court had placed the interests of gay people ahead of children.
Read the opinion, governor, A$a, Jim, Gunner, et. al.. It was precisely because the state failed to consider children first that the rule was struck down. And the little matter of separation of powers.
The good news is that -- while Huckabee can talk all he wants about what the legislature should do in January -- he won't be around to help.
He's having reporters in to the Mansion at 3 p.m. today to talk about his Asian trip. Drop by if you have anything you'd like to ask him.
Paron Daylight Time
Circuit Judge Jay Moody has issued his written order in the Paron school case. He's decreed that the school remain open, pending a" full and fair hearing" by the state Board of Education, rather than subsumed into Bryant High.. He did not permanently enjoin the closure.
It's a curious decision in some ways. For example: He held there was no evidence that time spent on the bus would be beneficial to students. Getting to a better high school with far more courses and activities is not beneficial?
And there was this curious statement:
There was evidence, however, that the Paron students would be required to spend significant amounts of time riding in the dark on the dangerous roads and that, in the winter time, they would see their houses in the daylight only on the weekends."
Is the standard now to be that a student must see his home during daylight? Are there other students in Arkansas who now run afoul of this standard? What, exactly, is the harm in that, by the way?
No matter. The state Education Department and legislature are going to have to spend some time on busing and set standards on whether curriculum, activities, teachers, labs and libraries are more important than rides and decree exactly how long is too long.
It would be interesting to have a student-by-student analysis of bus rides in Paron. Mathematically, it's unlikely EVERY child in the school has a four-hour ride. And it would also be interesting to see the rides they'd have to take if the district could be redrawn in the most sensible fashion to split the territory among neighboring school districts. That's the solution that SHOULD occur here.
We were interested too at the judge's finding of the school's "record of academic success." Paron's scores are more or less average and deficient in some testing areas according to state data. Furthermore, when the UA Department of Education Reform devised a School Performance Index for all schools in Arkansas, Paron didn't do so hot. The Index evaluated how well districts did after you took race, poverty and education of parents into account (all these factors are predictors of school "success".)
Paron High, in this Performance Index, scored far below average in math, below average in reading, above average on the end-of-course exam and -- overall -- below average statewide and below the index score of Bryant High School. Out of 1,116 schools in the state, Paron High ranked 741st in the index. (This was worse than several neighboring high schools that Paron students could attend, such as the much closer Joe T. Robinson in the Pulaski County District.) If this be "success," I'd hate to see failure.