OPINION | BILL KOPSKY: Improve schools
Invest in proven strategies
August 24, 2023 at 3:05 a.m.
by BILL KOPSKY Special to the Democrat-Gazette
One thing we can all agree on is that we want our children to succeed. We need all children to have an opportunity to succeed to build the strong communities we want.
Despite our common values, most Arkansans know that we can do better for our kids. Our schools are stuck near the bottom of national rankings. There are a lot of opinions on how to help our students learn better, and a lot of political and ideological noise around what schools should do.
The good news is there is astonishing consensus around reforms we know will improve outcomes for every child in Arkansas. Backed by a multitude of peer-reviewed studies and case examples, the path to improving our schools is remarkably clear:
High-quality early childhood education
Extra help for low-income children
After-school and summer programs
Improving special education
Improving teacher quality
Strengthening student/parent/educator and community collaboration
High-quality curriculum and standards
Over the past decade, a slew of education advocates have released reports summarizing the best evidence on how to improve public education in Arkansas, reaching similar conclusions. In 2017, several of those organizations released a joint statement highlighting the consensus on how to help students achieve more success in Arkansas. Those recommendations still ring true.
The bad news is education reforms haven't been widely implemented in Arkansas. Why? Because the reforms we need are either expensive or hard, and often both. Instead of investing in what's proven to help, lawmakers and special interests have drowned out facts and data with ideology.
The biggest thing that undermines student success is poverty. Look at struggling schools in Arkansas: They track nearly identically with high-poverty areas. It should be shocking, but unsurprising, to know that Arkansas also ranks near last for child well-being as a result of so many children being in poverty.
State takeovers of low-income under-performing schools, like Little Rock, Pine Bluff and now Marvell-Elaine, have failed to make improvements because the state has not invested in the proven reforms we know help overcome poverty and boost learning.
It sets our state backwards when lawmakers take counter-productive diversions like weakening standards and investing in voucher and charter-school schemes instead of investing in our most powerful solutions. After-school and summer programs receive no regular state funding. High-quality pre-K has been flat-funded for 15 years. Special education is massively underfunded by the state's own admission.
Lawmakers recently increased minimum teacher salaries--a badly needed investment--but they undermined this by eliminating a state salary schedule that rewards advanced training and experience and by gutting the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act (TFDA).
I don't want ineffective teachers in the classroom, but the minimal procedural protections of the TFDA are not why it's hard for some districts to replace them. We have a massive teacher shortage, especially from diverse backgrounds. We have massive pay inequities between wealthy and rural low-income school districts that lawmakers just made worse. And we don't do enough to support and retain the many excellent educators we have.
Our schools should make every student feel welcome, safe and supported, but lawmakers are engaged in culture wars that make students, families and educators feel attacked.
Educators are afraid to teach Black history or engage a class in the challenging books that develop critical thinking and respect for diversity. Our teachers are highly skilled professionals who need the freedom to do their jobs without fear of the governor and state lawmakers micromanaging their every move.
We know how to do this. Arkansas had the fastest improving education system in the country for the decade after the Lakeview ruling in 2002. Lawmakers developed a bipartisan consensus to invest in the most proven education reforms. We boosted standards, dramatically expanded quality pre-K, raised pay for all educators, and raised standards. But we've been regressing for several years as investments have failed to keep up and policy has been consumed by shrill ideology.
Arkansas needs to reset our education priorities. We know what is proven to help kids succeed. We should tell lawmakers and local school officials we want them focused on early childhood education, after-school and summer programs, improving special education, providing extra support to low-income kids, improving teacher quality, and state standards that are clear, consistent and strong.
There are other things we can do, but any reform that's not based in these most effective strategies is likely to fail. Let's invest in what's most proven first.
– Bill Kopsky is executive director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel.
