Superintendents are not the enemy
It is weird, doing this work—the three jobs I have of teacher, director of Arkansas Strong, and writer. There is an overlap. And sometimes they all converge.
Mine converged at the Capitol this past Tuesday. I took a personal day, drove two hours, arrived at 7 a.m., and climbed to the top of the steps. I sat on the hard cold marble facing the sun and prayed. Birds twittered in the tulip trees. A man in a neon vest ran a leaf blower down the sidewalk. A yellow LRSD school bus rumbled by.
As people began to gather, I felt the opposite of alone. It was a family reunion of 500 undeterred by state basketball tournaments, distance, and the government-mandated ACT test.
Public school people, like farmers and soldiers, speak their own language. We look alike. There’s a way of being that feels familiar, a knowing that extends from Pine Bluff to Pea Ridge, Bryant to Bentonville, Fort Smith to Fox. I trust teachers. Surrounded by teachers, I feel safe.
It is worth noting who came to stand with us. Administrators. Retired teachers. Parents. Pastors. School board members. Students. Progressive Arkansas Women. Readers of this column. Of those in power, Democrats made up a rare supermajority. There was a lone Republican, Rep. Jim Wooten of Beebe.
I get emotional writing about Representative Wooten, as I did that morning when I saw him walking toward us. His tall, lean frame and high school football coach’s gravelly voice and gait remind me of my husband. His white hair, world-weariness, wisdom, and resolve remind me of my dad.
Coach Wooten was under no illusions, but spoke honestly and evenly to the group of Beebe Badgers, Ozark Hillbillies, and Dardanelle Sand Lizards who greeted him with hugs. “Without an act of God, I’m afraid it is going to pass.”
He went on to describe a poll by the governor’s office the day before, checking with all state reps to make sure the yes votes were there. Other lawmakers were threatened, told if they voted no there would be no appropriations for anything else they wanted for their districts. But Wooten wouldn’t fold. “I told them I am voting no because right is right and wrong is wrong.”
That stands out above all the noise I heard last week at the House Ed Committee meetings and on the floor of the House as the bill sailed through on its way into law.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. This Washington-style bill that forces universal vouchers down the throats of hard-working, tax-paying Arkansans who are for teacher raises, early literacy interventions, and other much-needed education reforms not addressed by LEARNS—like real help for special-needs children public schools are too strapped to adequately serve—is wrong. And the vote, which was 76 yea, 19 nay doesn’t change that.
Like a dangerous rock surged upon, swept over, and covered by a rolling river, the ebb has now revealed it clear as the day, pulled back the curtain of water to show it in sharp relief.
Politicians in this sick polarized culture can say anything, and they do. They’ve been saying since their campaigns that teachers are liars, groomers, indoctrinators, and lazy. That librarians force obscenity on children. That our locally elected school boards are greedy, corrupt. If we dare to disagree they lump us all in with the woke mob. And they keep getting elected, with seemingly no accountability.
But there is limit to how much Arkansans will tolerate. And there is such a thing as the truth.
Just because a politician says, as Sen. Bart Hester said to a group of teachers including myself, that “superintendents are the enemy,” that does not make it true.
Just because Sen. Breanne Davis says, as she did in the Senate Ed Committee meeting in which she presented the LEARNS Act, that “superintendents are misleading people at best, lying at worst—” that does not mean she speaks the truth.
Just because Rep. Bruce Cozart frankly told a group of teachers that he was tired of fighting vouchers, that vouchers are for the rich, and the rich are going to get what they want, there is no way to stop it—that does not mean he should have co-sponsored the bill.
And because Rep. DeAnn Vaught begged for prayer on Facebook, bemoaning how she hates “that Washington politics has made its way to Arkansas,” and cried from shame during the full House meeting as she made excuses for why she would vote yes— that does not mean she or any of the others elected to do right by the people of their districts have any excuse that is good enough to justify ignoring the voices of parents and educational professionals who represent 92 percent of the state’s school children.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. There is such a thing as the truth.
I was there when the last teacher left at 9:15 p.m. Tuesday after testifying to a committee that had already made up their minds before the day even started. No amount of facts, no classroom stories, no expertise offered by veteran educators; even no lack of numbers produced by Secretary Oliva to show how small schools can pay for this could stop LEARNS passing. The yes votes were already there.
But they have awakened a sleeping giant. Awakened, not woke. Elections have consequences. And 2024 is coming.