Classified

Priorities, priorities

UNTIL mankind reaches perfection—that seems to be something in the distant future—educating our kids will be a struggle. And we’re not just talking about making them do their homework before goofing off. (Although there’s that.)

In the Little Rock School District, 25 schools have D or F letter grades, based on a variety of factors, much of them test scores. So the school district has taken action, which you’d expect. Some of that action might be real change, and might work, which a cynic might not have expected.

The school district will divide its schools into three classifications: The top tier will be the A-B schools (“autonomous”); the C schools (“on watch”); and the D-F schools (“priority”). Support to the schools will increase as needed. Thanks to the paper’s news side and Cynthia Howell’s story in Friday’s paper for explaining it all. We refer you to it.

Some initial thoughts:

■ The superintendent of schools, Jermall Wright, told the school board last week in a presentation that schools “with the greatest percentage of students from low-income families had the lowest letter grades—with exceptions of Gibbs Magnet Elementary and Forest Heights STEM Academy for grades kindergarten through eight.”

Then by all means, let’s find out what Gibbs and Forest Heights are doing. Copy it. And spread it around to other school districts. Which is why alternative schools like magnets and charters exist. The whole point is to find different ways to educate, and bottle what is found to be good. Sounds like it’s time for the school board to invite the principals of both schools to a board meeting, and ask for their secret sauce recipe.

■ According to the plan (albeit a draft plan), the top schools will be left to keep doing what they’re doing, the C schools will be monitored, and the D-F schools . . . . Well, the plan says leaders in those schools “could be required to participate in ongoing training related to management and leading turnaround schools. The schools might have assistant principals and assistant teachers to add support in classrooms. Instructional facilitators and social workers might also be added to the school staff.”

This is a lot to unpack. Let’s start here: Putting more teachers in more meetings is always a warning sign. Even in the newspaper business, meetings aren’t where things get done. But meeting to figure out what is happening in “turn-around schools” sounds like it could have promise. If everybody is going to learn from, say, schools like Gibbs and Forest Heights, they’re going to have to attend at least one meeting and take notes.

Putting more people in the classroom, and taking them from administration, is always a good idea.

But what’s an “instructional facilitator,” and isn’t that a fancy name for “teacher”? Or is that a teacher of teachers, or just a supervisor? What public school teachers don’t need is more paperwork to fill out or hoops to jump through—and certainly not another layer of bureaucracy.

And this caught our eye, like a star in the dawning sky: The draft plan calls for “incentives for student growth.” The details aren’t available, but if that means more merit pay and more bonuses for teachers who are the best at their jobs, then that’s a great idea, and should be welcomed.

Education will be a work in progress, always. And those in charge of it will spend much of their time trying to figure out how to make it better, as long as people are people.

That perfection of everything, including schools, still seems a long way off.