Our way of life? Please just give it a rest.

Editorials

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

WE STOOD there helplessly. The ranchers looked up at the hay barn and spoke Mandarin Chinese. Or it might as well have been. Something about the slope of the barn’s roof, and to extend it, you needed to do something with a 4-12 pitch. We found ourselves with that sick feeling from our college algebra days, when the professor got into imaginary numbers and how important they were. 

Four-twelve pitch? Doesn’t the batter walk after four balls? 

When we think of rural folk, Gomer Pyle doesn’t exactly spring to mind. We live in Arkansas, remember. We know these folks are no dummies. 

When we think of rural life, we think of watching the wild turkeys from a deer stand, or how much brighter the stars are away from the city lights, or how some people leave their doors unlocked (in case the neighbors need something) and, sometimes, we don’t think at all but just look up at a barn roof, breathing out our mouths, and listening to two ranchers talk about a 4-12 pitch. 

We’re pretty sure about this, though: If the balloon ever goes up, these’ll be the folks with the healthy tomato plants, deer rifles, working trucks, generators, wood splitters and leak-proof hay barns, 4-12 pitches and all. It’s other people, like, say, inky wretches, who will go begging. (Hey, ya need a verb conjugated?) 

So if rural folks aren’t dumb, why treat them that way? Why not give their kids the best education we can? The little suckers are perfectly capable of absorbing it. 

YOU KNEW it would happen. A judge using law logic—not to be confused with common sense, smarts, and certainly not with logic itself—briefly ordered the Bryant School District to re-open little Paron High School just before school was to start. It would be a couple of days before the judge thought better of it. Meanwhile, for a day or two, parents and students and teachers and principals and school board members milled around trying to figure out just what th’ heck His Honor’s ruling meant, and how long it would hold up. The politicians only added to the confusion: 

The Republican candidate for attorney general, Gunner DeLay, said closing Paron High would be “an attack on the rural way of life that many Arkansans choose for their families.” 

Oh, puh-leeze. 

Paron was closed because it couldn’t teach the 38 required courses for its kids. And that’s just the minimum. There are schools in Arkansas that teach well over 100 courses. Like Bryant, for example. But the state says that in order to be academically acceptable, a high school must teach—not just “offer” on paper—a bare minimum of 38 courses. And Paron High couldn’t do it. Let’s not even get into its fiscal problems. 

The state’s position makes sense. Why shouldn’t a kid in rural Arkansas have the chance to play the viola? Or take a physics or fine arts class? All those classes (including the viola one) might comes in handy when it came time to apply for a college scholarship. We do want these kids to go on to college, don’t we? Or is not getting a college education also a mainstay of Our Rural Way of Life? What’s the rural way of life supposed to be based on? Ignorance? 

But th’ heck with the kids, right? It’s the schools that are important, right? No doubt that’s why candidate and would-be attorney general of Arkansas, Gunner DeLay, said he would push lawmakers to exempt geographically isolated schools from meeting the state’s minimum standards for a decent curriculum. 

So much for No Child Left Behind. Gunner DeLay would leave the kids in rural Arkansas wa-a-a-y behind. 

As the Gunner put it: “If you want to help rural schools, you need to change things.” 

Wait a minute, sir. Some of us don’t give a tinker’s darn about helping rural schools. What we care about, very much, is helping rural students. 

Gunner DeLay went on to criticize the current AG, Mike Beebe, and the Department of Education for “acting as predators pursuing rural schools when they should be acting as partners.” There he goes again—talking about saving schools instead of educating kids. He gets an A in demagoguery, an F when it comes to responsibility. 

As it turns out, Mike Beebe is running a campaign, too—for governor—so his flack issued a statement saying Candidate Beebe is opposed to any more school consolidation, too. 

General Beebe isn’t alone when it comes to pushing this school-first, kidslast agenda. His GOP oppoent—Asa!—isn’t above pandering to Paron’s voters, too. On the contrary, he’s been doing it for months. Aided and abetted by both candidates for Lite Guv. 

Can’t anybody talk plain any more? 

How about this: 

Paron’s high school isn’t as important as Paron’s high school students. 

Those students, all of them, deserve a first-rate education. Like every other kid in Arkansas. 

Paron’s students should have as many opportunities as a kid down the highway at the big school. And if that means they might have to ride the bus a little longer, it’s worth it. If it means they have to cheer another high school mascot, it’s worth it. If it means they have to find another group of friends this year, it’s worth it. 

You can hardly tell all that to a 14-yearold and expect them to understand. Most of them would probably be thinking only about their cliques, their basketball team, and how in the world will I survive if Jimmy goes to a different high school? Their parents, though, ought to know better. And the politicians, well, we’ve about given up on them. 

It takes courage to be for more educational opportunities for all of Arkansas’ children, including those out in the state. And this being an election year, courage is in short supply.