Arkansas Blog

I wrote two weeks ago that the Little Rock School Board would be giving Superintendent Linda Watson a needs-improvement annual evaluation. The closed session was delayed by Board member Katherine Mitchell's absence, but it came last night. My apologies for not sticking with it last night to report on the outcome in a more timely fashion.

The superintendent's contract, which has two years to run, was not extended. She was given some specific objectives to meet.

We can all hope she meets the objectives and the district's students progress. But I'd like to emphasize again a positive element in this process. A majority of a Board that has seen deep, racially identifiable splits supports this process. Nobody is rubberstamping the superintendent's work. That's as it should be. It might have forestalled some problems in a previous school administration had a similar dynamic prevailed.