Education chief updates board on Sanders plan

LITTLE ROCK — Jacob Oliva on Thursday presented his first report to the Arkansas Board of Education in his new dual role as Arkansas secretary of education and commissioner of the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Oliva spoke just one day after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders unveiled components of her Arkansas education plan that includes raising beginning teacher salaries from $36,000 to $50,000, offering other teacher pay incentives, creating a voucher system that would give families access to public funding for home-school costs or private school tuition, creating a dual diploma system to prepare students for the workforce, funding for 120 reading coaches and providing $500 grants for tutors for academically struggling kindergarten-through-third-graders.

The plan has drawn both praise and criticism from lawmakers, educators and policy advocates, including the Arkansas Education Association, its affiliate the Little Rock Education Association and the Arkansas chapter of Americans For Prosperity.

“We’ve been really busy putting pen to paper and working to see if we can’t get this blueprint into a place where it will be codified through the Legislature,” Oliva told the Education Board about the initiatives and the executive orders that Sanders has issued since taking office Jan. 10.

Eleven of those 16 orders deal with education, Oliva said, and some of them include hard deadlines for completing reviews and revisions of school, district, and state practices and rules.

“I can assure every single one of you that this is great work,” Oliva said. “It’s the right work, but it’s also going to be really busy for us here because there are going to be a lot of rules and decisions made about how do we implement a lot of these best practices with the right guardrails and research.”

He said he anticipates the development of an information dashboard to keep the board and public up to date on the new work.

Oliva, who was a veteran Florida educator before he was selected by Sanders for her Cabinet, said he is very appreciative of the welcome he’s received and the commitment and passion he has seen at the state agency.

He’s also familiarized himself with winter weather, he said.

“I’m learning a lot about ice in the state of Arkansas,” he told the Education Board, adding that the agency is working with districts most affected by recent winter storms to ensure that students can continue to learn in the best manner possible.

Carol B. Fleming, president of Arkansas Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union, on Thursday objected to Sanders’ voucher proposal, which she said will take money from the public schools that serve 90% of the state’s schoolage children.

“Spending money on voucher programs means denying students the opportunities they deserve in their neighborhood public schools,” Fleming said. “When our leaders choose to fund voucher programs, they pick and choose which children can pursue their dreams. Educators, parents, guardians and students should be very concerned about the proposal’s impact.”

Fleming noted that the teacher association is a longtime advocate for increasing salaries as a way to recruit and retain high-quality educators.

“While we’re encouraged to see this issue of low teacher pay addressed after years of our advocacy, we urge the Arkansas state Legislature to do so without harming students through voucher schemes,” she said.

Kristy Mosby, president of the Little Rock Education Association, also welcomed the recommendation for improved teacher salaries but urged that all the governor’s proposals be separated into individual legislative bills so each can be judged on its own merit.

“Educators’ raises should not be at the expense of a functioning public education system,” Mosby said. “We stand in complete opposition to the [proposed] repeal of the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, which was enacted to protect educators from losing their jobs without due process. This is essential in ensuring schools operate fairly and equitably.

“We further oppose the proposed measure to allow unlimited numbers of charter schools and school choice transfers,” Mosby said. “The school choice movement is based upon the faulty belief that there must be schools that are worse than others. Instead of writing those schools off as failures, we should be increasing investment in those institutions that need it most.”

Ryan Norris, state director of Americans for Prosperity, on Thursday praised the governor’s plans.

“Freedom is actualized when people are empowered to make decisions, not when decisions are made for them,” Norris said.

“We trust parents and support Gov. Sanders’ plan to empower families to be the drivers when it comes to education for their children. We thank Gov. Sanders for making Arkansas a national leader empowering families and look forward to working with her to make educational freedom a reality for every single student in Arkansas.”