That Got Their Attention (Editorial)

The State Board of Education’s vote last week to take control of the Little Rock School District away from its elected board members may have disappointed some, but it shouldn’t have surprised many. As the Lakeview case taught us in the last decade, the state government ultimately has the responsibility to provide adequate and equitable educational opportunities to all Arkansas schoolchildren, and it has stepped in to manage a number of school districts when needed.

The state’s largest school district is clearly not too big to fail, and neither is it so big as to be exempt from the same standards and requirements that we demand of smaller districts. Yes, there might have been less drastic paths than usurping the authority of the elected board, but something dramatic had to happen.

The Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce’s cheerleading for this takeover strikes some observers, even observers out of state, as business interests overriding the desires of the parents and the voters. And there is much truth to the criticism that a lot of “suits” have not put their children and their passionate parental involvement into the school district that they then wanted to see under appointed rather than elected management. That’s a chicken-or-egg question.

It is undeniable it was student performance, not the chamber, that brought the LRSD to this point, and it hasn’t been improving under traditional management, even with more money than the district will have available when desegregation funding is discontinued in a couple of years.

The State Board of Education took a hard stand, the kind that is always controversial and risky. But it may be the best thing that’s happened to the LRSD in a long, long time.