One more step forward

The Supremes do their bit to help

LITTLE by little, as in two steps forward for one backward, both state law and local education in Little Rock are beginning to serve the needs of our kids— instead of the lawyers, politicians, race- hustlers, and patronage- dispensers who for too long have used the Little Rock School District for their own self- interested purposes.

We’re talking about you, Jim Ross, one of the happily former members of the school district’s board who brought suit to stop the state from taking over the district, which had to have been one of the worst in the state, if not the worst.

If ever a school district needed taking over, it was Little Rock’s. Just listen to the fine mix of political buzzwords in Mr. Ross’ statement responding to the state Supreme Court’s decision to throw his case out of court:

“The heartbreaking thing here is that everyone at the table, whether on the Supreme Court or in the Department of [ Education] . . . they all know the game here. It’s about bringing for- profit charter schools to Arkansas. This is about making sure local black leadership didn’t have a voice in their children’s education.”

Mr. Ross makes profit sound like a bad word while pulling out all the other demagogic stops. He dismisses public charter schools as some kind of nefarious white conspiracy, while they’re really the greatest step forward in American education in recent times, if not since Horace Mann introduced the concept of public education to this country.

See what happened in New Orleans, where charter schools have turned one of the worst educational systems in the country into one of the best.

We’re talking about you, Marion Humphrey, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, who seriously contended that “the Little Rock School District is in good shape.” Even though only a couple of years ago ( in July of 2014) the state’s Board of Education classified three of the Little Rock district’s five high schools, two of its middle schools and one of its elementary schools as being in a state of “academic distress.”

A school is academically distressed when, on average over a three- year period, 49.5 of its students or fewer achieve at least proficient scores on state math and literacy exams. If that’s in good shape, what would bad shape be?

TO QUOTE the state’s Supreme Court on the plaintiffs’ brief it considered before dismissing it without a dissent: “Most of the allegations recited above are not factual; they are instead largely legal conclusions and speculation,” according to Justice Robin Wynne, who wrote the opinion. “To the extent the [ plaintiffs”] assertions contain actual allegations of fact, those allegations are not sufficient to establish that the State Board acted arbitrarily, capriciously, in bad faith, or in a wantonly injurious manner.”

In short, this brief on behalf of the angry board members was as bad as the old school system itself. So let’s hear it for the Supremes, who refused to be bullied or fooled by all this pettifoggery.

Johnny Key has been the commissioner of education who’s been in charge of operating the school district since the School Board’s dissolution by state order. He put it this way: “We are committed to ensuring the constitutional standard of education is met for all students in Arkansas, and this ruling affirms the state’s duty to act when necessary. We remain dedicated to supporting Superintendent [ Baker] Kurrus, educators, and parents to provide a high- quality education to all students in the Little Rock School District.”

Amen and more power to him and to all those who can recognize a step forward when they see one.