Still serious; Don't mess with the Supremes

Editorials

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Monday, August 7, 2006

WE CAN still see it, still hear it, still appreciate it. Donald Corbin, justice on the state Supreme Court, was giving what-for to the lawyers one long morning during a long hearing in the long Lake View case. Some suit from the attorney general’s office was trying to convince the Supremes that the state and the Ledge had done more than enough to reform schools—or at least make them constitutional, for li’l Petey’s sake. (This was before the state and the Ledge had done near enough.) 

Good ol’ Judge Corbin was having none of it. He wasn’t about to let the state or its legislators off the ook. Nope, he drawled in that plain-spoken Lafayette County accent of his: “I want to stick the hook in real deep, so they’ll know at least one judge won’t put up with this again.” 

It took every ounce of control we had not to leap from our seats and cheer. And when Judge Corbin’s opponent tried to make that comment an issue in his last campaign, tried to make it some sort of knock against Don Corbin’s judicial temperament, well, we didn’t buy it. We were there. In Arkansas, in the Lake View case, that is judicial temperament. Namely, not being suckered by the lawheads into believing that this state’s system of public education is fine and dandy when we all know it ain’t. 

That day in court and that endearing line from Judge Corbin came rushing back when word arrived that the Supremes had overturned a lower court order in the latest version of Lake View—now styled the Future of Paron High, Rural Schools and Book Larnin’ Life As We Know It. 

Verdict: That hook is still set deep. The Supremes are still serious. No exceptions, no exemptions, no excuses, no going back to the days where academic standards didn’t count for much. 

It didn’t take long for the state’s Supreme Court to overturn an order from a Pulaski County circuit court that tiny Paron High be kept open despite its inability to meet academic standards or solve money problems. There were some other problems standing in the way, too. Like the Bryant school board’s vote to close it. And a concurring vote of the state’s board of education to close it. 

It took all of four sentences for the Supremes to handle this little matter. They noted that the lower court order was a “gross abuse of discretion” because it had ruled before Bryant’s school district had become a defendant in the suit. And since Paron was part of Bryant’s school district, you figure Bryant oughtta have a say. So did the Supremes. 

Beyond that not so little legal matter, there’s the big picture. The Supremes’ terse reversal of a lower court amounts to a victory for academic standards and against an exception for one tiny school. That exception would surely have led to more exceptions for other tiny schools. And more exceptions. And more exceptions. Till the school that meets all the academic standards—in this case, the requirement that high schools in Arkansas teach at least 38 course units—will itself be the exception to the dismal rule of mediocrity in Arkansas education. 

THE SILLIEST part of the debate over Paron High is that its closing will somehow doom all rural schools. That to stand up for standards even at a little school like Paron is to be against all rural schools. 

This is ridiculous. (We’re talking to you, Asa!) Arkansas is a rural state. Nobody who cares about education in Arkansas can be against rural schools. What those of us who believe in higher standards are against is schools that won’t teach the very minimum of courses to their students, the basics-plus-a-few. Because that’s not fair to the kids who, yes, live and will live in rural Arkansas. We think they deserve just as excellent an education as kids in town. 

The idea of having minimum academic standards is to make sure that every child in Arkansas has a shot at a great education, that every child has access to classes like physics or music. No child left behind. No child left out. No child exempted from excellence. No. Exceptions. 

Or as this state’s Supreme Court has said: “All students, regardless of their place of residence, are entitled to substantially equal curriculum, substantially equal facilities, and substantially equal staff.” 

In short, the quality of a student’s education should not depend on where that student lives. 

The best analogy we’ve heard about what a public education in Arkansas should be came from Mike Huckabee—pre-diet. He said that he wanted public schools to be like Brown’s Country Kitchen, the allyou-can-eat place in Benton. (You got the feeling the Guv was speaking from experience.) Brown’s mammoth buffet might feature catfish and chicken, salad and mashed potatoes, pickled okra and beets and dozens of other dishes. If this were a school, see, everybody might have to eat the salad and beets, the good-for-ya basics, but not everybody might want the potatoes or the pickled okra, the extra stuff. Some might, and the idea was to make them available to the kids. All the kids. Why should a highschool student in Paron be excluded? 

That story always makes us hungry. It also makes us glad that, as this state tries to fix our schools, Mike Huckabee has been governor—and the state Supreme Court has kept the hook in deep.