NPR was in Little Rock to highlight the past, present and future of education in Arkansas, including LEARNS and the state's legacy of school segregation.
The insulting suggestion that public school students have little chance of academic success and should probably throw their hopes and dreams into the trash is most definitely not the feel-good story we were looking for this holiday season.
The Arkansas LEARNS Act will soon usher in a new era of segregation, sorting students into the haves and the have-nots and leaving those have-nots further behind. There is too much of this already, and LEARNS will only make it worse.
In this first episode of Fair Assessment, co-hosts Ali Noland, an attorney and school-board member in Little Rock, and Gwen Faulkenberry, a veteran classroom teacher in rural Arkansas, introduce themselves to listeners, explain their motivation for creating an Arkansas education podcast, and start a discussion about some of the big themes that have emerged in public-education policy and politics recently.
Time might be nearly up for South Arkansas school districts that have successfully fought state efforts to force them to allow white-flight transfers under the state school choice law of 2013.
The Reform Alliance, a group that's been pushing school segregation in the form of charters and vouchers for years now, is putting on a victory lap of a town hall tonight, with special guest Jacob Oliva.
Ignoring all advice to slow down, have an informed debate, engage some experts, gather data, listen to concerns and build consensus, they have plowed ahead. Proponents of privatization passed sweeping changes to our public education system in record time. Now, they must own it.