In this together
Vouching for public schools
My name is Gwen, but my students call me Mrs. Faulkenberry. I’m an English teacher, the daughter and sister of public educators, wife of a high school football coach, and mother of four public school children. I’m also the product of a rural public school—a proud Ozark Hillbilly.
I live in the country atop a hill that overlooks the Arkansas River. Last Tuesday I got up at 5 a.m. and drove to Little Rock. I was given two minutes to speak to the House Education Committee against House Bill 1371, otherwise known as the private school voucher bill. It was not enough time.
Still, I thought the bill was dead after it failed on the House floor. But like a hydra, when you cut off its head, more grow back. Talking heads that represent wealthy special-interest groups started circulating a hit list of 12 representatives, claiming they “betrayed their constituents” by voting against the bill. Readers were admonished to tell these reps “they work for you” and “not their superintendents.”
Supporters of vouchers weave a confusing, tangled web of distortion that includes marketing a “scholarship” program to benefit underprivileged kids, although the income cutoff is higher than the average family income in Arkansas. The way this scam works is that rich people receive tax credit for every dollar they put toward the fund to pay for private school vouchers. This means they can choose to pay tax only to support private school vouchers.
It would be like if I passed a bill that set up a fund to pave my mile-long dirt driveway. Regular taxpayers—the ones who fund our shared public highways—would credit me dollar-for-dollar even though I’d never let anyone use the private road but my family and friends. Sticking with this comparison, I’d argue the Legislature should do it because it would really help my family—we can’t otherwise afford a paved driveway—and it’s such a tiny amount of money no one would miss it.
Of course, the school voucher bill allows the fund cap to rise 25 percent per year. So in 10 years we go from that insignificant amount to $37 million. And in 25 years, it rings up at over $1 billion siphoned away from public schools.
But I digress. Those interested in untangling all of the convoluted mess can find great analysis at www.aeaonline.org/buying-arkansass-schools. What I want to focus on is that claim by Walton lobbyist Laurie Lee, who said our elected representatives work for families and communities—not superintendents.
Out of every argument I’ve heard about school vouchers—and I’ve heard it all—this attitude gets at the heart of what is, to me, most disturbing. Note the binary language: families and communities on one side, and school superintendents on the other. It’s not an original idea, but a talking point I heard over and over in the House committee meeting as well as the session. Representatives are presented with this false dichotomy as if they must choose one side or the other.
And yet, in my hometown, as well as every other functioning town in this state, these people work together. They are not on opposing sides. Instead of a special-interest group in charge of school leadership, a locally elected board hires the school superintendent, who then answers to them. The superintendent makes sure the district complies with hundreds of rules required by the state in order to receive taxpayer money (rules private schools don’t have to follow).
It’s not a powerful lobbyist communities call on when our children need computers they can take home or meals delivered during a pandemic. It’s the superintendents of schools. They are the ones losing sleep at night over how to protect our kids from an active shooter, how to make sure buses pick up every child down every dirt road, how to provide needed services for anyone who shows up at the school door, regardless of income, race, religion, or disability.
Unlike the Waltons, superintendents are not in the school business to get rich. They are not enemies of families and communities. That’s the inconvenient truth missing from the voucher pushers’ message.
Our founding fathers envisioned a strong public education system because they understood the value of a learned citizenry.
Many saw inequities in other countries where money meant the difference in having access to education or not. They believed individual freedom—that inalienable right—meant your social class should not determine the quality of your education.
Arkansans agree. The Arkansas Constitution says our state must provide an adequate and equitable education for all of our children. Public schools are the great equalizer, one of the last truly democratic institutions still standing. If they are inadequately meeting the needs of Arkansas students, the answer is not to defund them by diverting tax money in the direction of private schools.
Instead, we should help our schools fix the problems holding them back by making sure they have the resources and academic freedom they need to succeed. Because regardless of how outside interest groups try to divide and conquer us, the truth is that Arkansas families, communities, and schools are in this together.