The latest report

Even special masters can miss the obvious 

Editorials, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Thursday, October 6, 2005

Is Arkansas bringing its schools into compliance with constitutional standards? Two special masters were appointed to find out, and their answer, in 83 pages, might be summed up in one word: No. 

The best thing about the report is that at least somebody is taking the law seriously. And public education, too. In this case, two somebodies: Bradley Jesson and David Newbern, two former justices of the state Supreme Court. Neither was willing to let the state, especially its Legislature, off the hook. 

What really killed the state’s defense before the special masters was all that extra moolah the legislators poured into their favorite projects. The legislators divvied up $52.4 million out of that grab bag called the General Improvement Fund, earmarking the money for such important projects as a $180,000 stage for a Wings Over the Prairie Festival. 

The Ledge might as well have signed, sealed and delivered a confession when it converted all that money into pork. Instead of saving those millions for education, it spent them—but not on the schools. Make provision for the future? Nah, just wait for the next lawsuit. Result: The real progress that dedicated legislators have made on education the past few years was thoroughly obscured. 

If the Legislature had gradually increased the level of per-pupil spending over the next few years, it would have demonstrated its good faith and might even have kept the state out of court—and in the long run cost the taxpayers less. Instead, the Ledge chose to go on a spending spree. 

None of this escaped the special masters’ attention. They noted that the legislators even ignored their own Act 57 of 2003, passed in a special session that year, mandating that the legislators "challenge the validity of each of the dollar amounts in Act 59 [which sets state spending per pupil] and requires them to propose appropriate, adequate dollar amounts by September 1 of each year prior to the next biennium." 

The Ledge didn’t even go through the motions of re-evaluating its spending level on schedule—confirmation that it just decided to take a year off on this educational front, which is no way to move Arkansas forward. And the special masters noticed. 

But there was one gaping blind spot in this report: It dealt only with how much money is being spent on education, not how much is being achieved. It proposed no measurable connection between money spent and student performance. The always concise Bill Stovall, speaker of the Arkansas House, summed up the problem with the report in his own pithy way: "That’s all I see in this report is a criticism of lack of money. I’m frustrated." 

So long as the reform of education is thought of only in terms of how much more money we can throw at the system (without any discernible effect over the years), a lot of us will remain frustrated, the public schools will lose public support and confidence, and Arkansas will never be the state and society it can and should be. 

The most telling thing about this report is what it didn’t say, just as the most telling thing about the Legislature’s record is what it didn’t do. This report is all about funding and the state’s almost mystically complex spending formulae. The special masters assumed that money spent is the only guide to equity, rather than what students may, can and do learn. 

Does this report contain any mention of student testing, merit pay for teachers based on student test results, or how to determine the real quality of the education being offered the next generation? If so, we missed it. And that’s the big hole in the state’s educational strategy, at least among judges and politicians. We’ll never have an equitable educational system if we have only a financial, not an educational, standard to meet. 

The special masters also criticized Governor Mike Huckabee for not doing enough to push education reform—without mentioning that the state’s Supreme Court, in so many vague words, had told the Guv to butt out. His big mistake was to think the court meant it, when actually it had only delivered another of its split, tentative and generally indecisive decisions. Now the state awaits the the court’s next decision, which could prove just as split, tentative and indecisive. Arkansas deserves clearer guidance.