Arkansas Blog

This is an embarassment to the entire community. Mitchell should resign.

I imagine Brooks' reaction was something akin to this, "you must be crazy".

Any updates on Mitchell testimony?

Max:

I've only lived in LR for about 8 years, but wasnt there some issue about Daugherty's level of education claim and that the wasnt honest about it. I heard some co-workers mentioning something regarding that. Oh and what is the deal with the president of the school board being head of a college when it lost its accreditation???????

ARK. BLOG: Yes, we wrote years ago about Daughtery's misstatement of his college record. It's been well-covered, most recently in the Sunday D-G. Katherine Mitchell now works at Philander Smith, which is accredited. She previously worked at Shorter College, whose decades of problems stemming from shortage of money and management problems are far too historic and broad to be placed at the feet of any one person, even if she bears some responsibility. (For which I have no idea.)

Like most elected positions, citizens are free to select the individual they think will represent their interests best. And for school boards, those voters are the only "term limits" mechanism that exists. There is no maximum term that can be served, and there appears to be no recall procedure.

Mitchell has served on the LRSD for 18 years, and apparently her constituents are satisfied with the efficacy (responsible use of taxpayer investment dollars) and effectiveness (student academic achievement) that has characterized the LRSD progress over these last 18 years.

The NAACP has joined the fray, setting up a legal defense fund for Mitchell and Daugherty, saying they are primarily concerned with the democratic representation aspects of the situation.

The Presidency, the highest office in our democracy, has a recall mechanism, but not the school board? And, actually, the highest office in the land is not currently occupied by the candidate that the majority elected. The majority was thwarted.

It will continue to be interesting to watch how the courts handle this situation.

No board meeting tonight, Judge say.

Specifically, the judge issued an order granting limited injunctive relief. He did so because the board did not honor Brooks' contract that provided him with a meaningful hearing prior to a suspension. There was a hearing but there was no real substance to it. The contract also required that a hearing office be employed. The Court held that Dr Brooks has never received any notcie of hte specific charges to be presented against him. Dr. Mitchell testified taht she believed that the specific allegatoins would be provided to Dr. Brooks at the hearing. ( Not too useful then I'd gather)

The Court held that the facts suggest that "the Borard meembers do not understand or appreciate the differecne between the suspension and termination proceedings."

Eisele writes "despite conclusory assertions by Dr. Mitchell, it appeals (sic?) that there is no emergency situation here that would justify proceeding with the hearing without providing Dr Brooks any notice of the suspension charges."

The Court concluded that if he is not given due process his reputation may be irreparably harmed. The damage to Brooks far outweighs any possible damage to the School District. The public benefits factor tips in Dr. Brooks' favor.

The Court orders: the injunction is granted on limited terms, the suspension hearing may go on if a hearing officer is used, and the School Board must obey the terms of Brooks' contract and respect his constitutional due process rights - mainly, give him a clear concise list of grievances that are alleged to justify his suspension. The notice must be 5 days ahead of the hearing.

Obviously, my typing skills are deficient.

I thought an injunction would issue but not for these reasons for sure. This just means they have to do it the right way - but it does not address any issue of bias etc, but maybe Brooks did not bring up that issue at the hearing.

If I remember right, the school board lawyer said "for sure" there has to be a hearing officer, and I guess his advice was ignored ?

In response to Littlecrock's questions about Dr. Katherine Mitchell's relationship to accreditation issues at the institutions at which she has worked: if I am not mistaken, she heads the Education Department at Philander Smith College.

Under her leadership, that department has gone from being unconditionally accredited by the National Council of Teacher Education (NCATE), to being accredited provisionally.

According to the NCATE website, accreditation with conditions "indicates that the unit has not met one or more of the NCATE standards." A department or school of Education accredited with conditions has a certain period of time to remediate, or it will lose its accreditation.

I do think it's a fair question--a more than fair question--to ask how a woman on whose watch a college closed, and on whose watch a department of Education has moved from unconditional to conditional accredtiation, is highly qualified to be head of a local school board.

ARK. BLOG: Simple answer. There is no qualification standard except that set by voters. Shorter has not closed.

Muddling Through:
What difference does it make? Mitchell was ELECTED. Daugherty was ELECTED. Fox was ELECTED. Berkley was ELECTED. Kurrus was ELECTED. Armstrong was ELECTED. Curry was ELECTED.Your point is?

This is getting obscene. I really do not like discrediting anyone and I knew about the Shorter College issue but not about the accredidation issue with Philander. If she were the superintendent I don't think I would have hesitated mentioning it because I would have the perception that it would have directly affected my kids' school. What scares me is when the president of the board then assumes responsibilities and authority which are not hers to take according to the LRSD policies?. The other thing that bothers me is the disregard for written policies. Since they have not been following the policies and Robert's Rules of Order in regard to suspending the rules for 18 years does that mean it's okay to do it the way it is currently being done (custom) or does that mean that there has been 18 years of doing it wrong!

I believe that the fault of a lot of this is the apparent lack of interest in the Little Rock environment to take the school board seriously. How qualified are our board members? It doesn't matter. They are elected by the voters.

I believe the voters of Little Rock area, especially Zones 2 and 4 which are served by Mike Daugherty and Baker Kurrus, have an opportunity to be heard. It is interesting to see the low number of voters in a school board election. I think it is time for us to take a heads up view of our schools and let the school board, and our children, know we are concerned about our schools.

LRSP,
I vote each and every time there is an election. I can't count the times when I have voted late in the afternoon in WLR that I am the only person voting and there were FEW before me. I can promise you that I WILL vote AGAINST Baker Kurrus and I so wish I could vote FOR Michael Daugherty. Why? Kurrus in the last few televised board meetings has been more concerned about his law license that the children in this district. I voted for him before, but it won't happen again. Personally, I don't think we need any lawyers on the board. I am also questioning the efficacy of having the Friday firm represent the school district. Perhaps that contract needs to be rethought?

This is getting obscene. I really do not like discrediting anyone and I knew about the Shorter College issue but not about the accredidation issue with Philander. If she were the superintendent I don't think I would have hesitated mentioning it because I would have the perception that it would have directly affected my kids' school.

LRSP,
Do your children have teachers, or are they taught by the School Board? How, on God's green earth, would a school board member effect your children? I have already explained this to others on another post..

"I can assure you that teachers are doing their jobs, teaching children, maintaining discipline, attending in-service sessions for Professional Development, researching lesson plans. writing lesson plans, and praying they had a "boss" that actually understood the consternations of educating today's young'uns. With or without Brooks, teachers will teach and children will learn. Don't worry about the kids. Teachers have been through this before. Let's all pray that this will be the last time."

Max, you say Shorter College has not closed.

Can you direct me to the college's website? I have just done a careful internet search without finding one.

What I do find is a listing for it in Peterson's guide to historically black colleges, which states, "Shorter College forms part of a cooperative center with Arkansas Baptist and Philander Smith Colleges in sharing resources and programs."

So it's a "cooperative center" with two other local HBCUs? Sounds prettly definitively closed to me!

And I would respectfully submit that Dr. Mitchell's history at leading academic institutions and academic departments IS germane, despite her elected status, to whether she is well-suited to making judgments about the ability of anyone else to lead the LRSD.

I've gone on record repeatedly to say I'm not a fan of Brooks. But not being a fan of Brooks need not transmit into blind loyalty to Mitchell. Perhaps it's the case that the LRSD just doesn't have competent leadership at all.

I've also gone on record to say that the power brokers of the white establishment are ultimately responsible for this mess. They do not let in alternative voices. They suppress information that needs to be aired in public discussions, keeping people ignorant of information that people need in order to build a healthy culture.

Such an environment does not attract the best and brightest to leadership positions, whether in the educational world or otherwise.

ARK. BLOG: Shorter is not closed. Dial their number.

Max, I see you didn't direct me to Shorter's website. Do you know of any other "open" colleges that have NO website?

Sounds to me like we're doing some fancy dancing re: the word closed. I'll take Peterson's description as my guide: "Shorter College forms part of a cooperative center with Arkansas Baptist and Philander Smith Colleges in sharing resources and programs."

When an accredited college becomes a "cooperative center," it's about as closed as it can get, in my books.

And there's no way around the reality: this happened when Dr. Mitchell was president of said college. And the Education Department she now heads HAS gone from having full NCATE accreditation to having conditional accreditation.

These are facts. They should be on the table for discussion. They speak to her ability to head a school board.

Unfortunately, whether we're talking about the statewide rag or its "liberal" anti-voice, same old voices keep on saying the same old things, and those open-table discussions just don't take place.

They can't take place, when new voices aren't permitted at the table.

The result? The kind of publicity our city and state got in today's NY Times.

ARK. BLOG: I keep telling you they're open. If you doubt me, drive by the campus or call the number. The switchboard will tell you the college is open, students are attending class and the president is Cora McHenry. It's also irrelevant to the school discussion, except to the extent you choose to make people's jobs and backgrounds relevant when voters make election choices. For now, she's a board member, one vote. Four makes a majority. They could all be incompetent convenience store clerks -- and you might well bemoan education policy led by such -- but it wouldn't change the arithmetic. It is simply not relevant in the current discussion. Nobody gets more or less of a vote on account of their vocational or educational background. Yours is a red herring on the issue at hand. Shorter College's sad history will not -- and should not -- have any bearing on how Judge Eisele decides the issue of Mitchell's participation in hearings about Brooks. I don't, by the way, have a clue about Katherine Mitchell's history at Shorter, nor do you. I do know it has had financial difficulties for the entire 34 years I've been in Little Rock, they were not created by her arrival.

Oh, and forgot one thing: here's the website:

http://www.shortercollege.4t.com/

Thank you for the website for Shorter, Max.

I'm curious about that .com suffix. All colleges/universities I know anything about have an .edu suffix.

Does .com not stand for "commercial"?

Interesting, too, that when one googles the phrase "Shorter College Little Rock," the website doesn't come up. The Peterson's listing I was referring to seems to date from 2002-2003, and gives a website with an .edu suffix that isn't active.

Do you happen to know if Shorter is accredited? The url you sent leads to a page that has information about the college, but nothing about its accreditation status.

That's curious, too. Any college/university I know much about has all the bodies accrediting it and its programs listed on its homepage.

I must very stringently disagree with you on this point: "It's[that is, K. Mitchell's history in educational institutions] also irrelevant to the school discussion, except to the extent you choose to make people's jobs and backgrounds relevant."

What is happening now would not have happened had Dr. Mitchell not drawn the line in the sand and provoked a showdown. Claiming she was acting out of a concern to save the school district money, she is now causing it to spend untold amounts more than it would have spent buying out Brooks' contact.

Calling executive sessions to shut out the public; sending threatening letters in the middle of the night; precipitating a showdown that is costing citizens much financially and in terms of image: these point to exceedingly poor leadership.

To say the least....

And when there's an ongoing record of poor leadership in positions of responsibility in the field of education, how on earth is that record not germane now?

I find it very difficult to believe, by the way, your claim that "I don't, by the way, have a clue about Katherine Mitchell's history at Shorter...." How can a journalist heading a statewide paper be uninformed (or incurious) about such a matter?

You go on to say that I don't have a clue about Katherine Mitchell's history at Shorter.

How can you say that with such confidence, I wonder?

ARK. BLOG: Because you've demonstrated no knowledge of her time there in any sort of specific references, you asserted erroneously that the college was closed and you asserted erroneously that the college had no website. I've yet to see much of an indication of your expertise on Shorter, save a reference to a five-year-old manual. You can certainly use Katherine Mitchell's experience and education to form your own conclusions about her ability to lead and on her judgment in decisions that brought us to where we are today. But they are irrelevant in LR school board votes and court decisions and Roy Brooks' continued employment. It's a straw man argument. Demonize the opposition. Tear them down to build yourself up. Roy Brooks has been using that tactic from the first. I'd prefer to decide the issue on the merits. He's a hired hand of the board. He's been a poor superintendent in many important ways. He's divisive. I think he should go. You might believe Mitchell is a poor member and divisive and should go. The difference is that voters alone decide that question.

P.S. I may have found the answer to my question about the accreditation status of Shorter College.

I just googled the phrases "Shorter College" and "Katherine Mitchell," and came to an article from Academe Today dated April 17, 1998.

It's entitled "Historically Black College in Little Rock Loses Appeal to Keep Accreditation."

The article notes that 1998, the college had 107 students, down from 252 in 1996. It also notes that the college's accrediting agency (presumably North Central) had placed it on probation in 1996 after a review committee found numerous problems, including "a gap between data collection and decision making."

It further states, "A visit by accreditors a year later found the same problems, and probation was extended until 1999. But only a few months later, Katherine Mitchell, the college's president for seven years, was fired, and last December the review committee recommended withdrawal of accreditation."

Who was president in 1996 when they were placed on probation?

And this information is irrelevant to the current discussion re: the LRSD why?

ARK. BLOG: Explain to me why it is relevant to current events. You can pile proof upon proof that one board member or another is not intelligent, wise, moral or physically fit. You can conclude your preferred side is being screwed by people who are your inferior. But it doesn't affect the board vote. It doesn't affect a court's decision on those votes. It is not a commentary on Roy Brooks' competency or desirability as superintendent. It is simply, irrelevant. In an election -- relevant. Wait til next year (or the year after), as they used to say in Brooklyn.

This is a public discussion. Having all the cards on the table in public discussions is important.

I do not have a preferred side. I have made it very clear that I have little regard for Dr. Brooks. My position on Dr. Mitchell (whom I know personally) speaks for itself.

If I have a "side," it is my concern to see journalism in Arkansas show some ethical responsibility to:

1) tell the whole story

2) stop playing games with the lives of any minority groups in order to serve the interests of one or other "side" of the power brokers in the white establishment

3) admit when it has been wrong

4) stop protecting those who violate due process and thwart public discussion, because of vested political interest in one side or the other.

I know very well why Dr. Mitchell is the darling of a certain group of movers and shakers in the Arkansas power-brokering establishment, Max. I know why you have sought very hard to defend her when her actions are odious and not to be defended. I happened to have been at two of her family funerals and saw the assortment of political leaders who were there.

I know to whom she "belongs," as I can also see clearly to whom Brooks "belongs."

It is time for journalists in Arkansas to be more responsible--as responsible as they were in 1957, when they bucked the power of any "side" to tell stories that provide the public with unvarnished truth.

Arkansans deserve better. We deserve to have our intelligence respected, and to have journalism that allows wide-ranging discussion of issues affecting the quality of life of all of us. We deserve journalism that does not ignore inconvenient information because that information happens not to fit the political penchants of the journalists.

We deserve more than two "sides," in which two dismal alternatives keep sniping at each other, while allowing only the same old boys' voices into the same old going-nowhwere "conversation."

Muddling Through - Interesting you said that but it was in general terms. Who were the assortment of policitcal leader? Who do you think supports Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Brooks?

It was interesting to see in the unscientific poll I am taking on the web site, how much the tide turned against Mitchell when the NY Times Article came out.

Just curious. I don't really have an opinion because most of it is just that, an opinion. I would like to have some solid proof. I have FOIA'ed the LRSD board and have not received a reply yet on the several I have written. That in itself is a violation of the Arkansas FOIA Act 93 of 1967. I should have at least expected some reply. Unfortunately, one was on the contents of the PCs the board uses and I am afraid that they may be worked on before I get a chance to see what is on them. After all, the information on them does belong to the people of Little Rock.

To Curious: I said that if she were the superintendent I would have a perception that she would affect our children. What scares me is that she has tried to usurp the power of the superintendent and wants to act like one. If the board (Mitchell) brings back the principal to one high school whom she said was "dis'ed" by Brooks, I have a problem. Besides, the person she referenced wasn't fired by Dr. Brooks, that principal was gone before Dr. Brooks got here! I'm just curious how that principal was "dis'ed" by Dr. Brooks. Some say his living ghost still haunts the halls. Everytime I go into the current principal's office I see the table where I have sat with that previous forsaken principal and wondered why and how he got his job!

Also, in voting against Baker Kurrus, that's pretty hard to do since he usually runs unopposed, sort of like Mike Daugherty. This is the environment I am talking about. However, it was interesting in the last election how there was at least more than one candidate. I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote. That is your privilege.

LRSD Parent, my perception is that, in very general terms, Brooks has the support of the conservative movers and shakers of the state's political and economic power structure, and Mitchell the support of the "liberal" wing of the same power structure.

In party-line terms, I suspect many Republicans have lined up behind Brooks and Democrats are lining up behind Mitchell. I know from personal observation that Mitchell has long had very close ties to some Democratic leaders in the state, some of whom now have national influence.

Of course, it's no secret where Mr. Brantley's political loyalties lie. What has concerned me in his treatment of the story is his apparent willingness to ignore (and even suppress) important pertinent evidence because of his political viewpoints.

I'm a lifelong registered Democrat, by the way, and have voted only once in my life for any Republican politician--and that cost me quite a few qualms of conscience. I voted for Winthrop Rockefeller in the last election in which he ran because I was aware of some good deeds he had done for an institution with which I was affiliated, and I wanted to express my gratitude to him by casting a vote for him.