Finally, A Win For Education (Editorial)

Two organizations long at odds with each other, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Education Association, recently endorsed Gov. Mike Huckabee’s compromise education program.

If labor and business can come together and back the plan that would consolidate most school districts with fewer than 1,500 students, so can we.

As we’ve said before, it’s not an ideal plan, but the compromise is head and shoulders above any other plan that has been put forth and it will improve the public schools of this state. The backing of these two groups should help the passage in a Legislature that so far is remarkable only in its inability to understand that the Supreme Court has ruled the school system unconstitutional.

The compromise education bill will include some provisions the AEA insisted upon regarding reduction in force policies as a result of eventual school district consolidation. Few teacher jobs are likely to be lost, but with with the state’s 310 school districts likely to be reduced by about 200, the governor didn’t get, nor did he expect, any backing from the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, the state superintendents’ lobby.

While many suspect the superintendents are merely trying to save their own jobs, many will also see their opposition — as the governor does — as trying to preserve the state’s inadequate and inequitable educational system. And that cannot happen.

Sid Johnson, president of the teachers union, said it never supported consolidation based on numbers alone — essentially the same position that was held by the state Chamber. But the compromise plan, with its job protections for teachers and the removal of a provision that would have given the state authority to hire and fire superintendents, made it more palatable.

Under the plan, those districts with fewer than 1,500 students can avoid consolidation if they can prove they offer the required high school curriculum.

Although we would have preferred a plan that remakes the educational system from the ground up and includes the logical creation of countywide districts, we’re grateful for the added support the AEA and the state Chamber give it. Unlike numerous lawmakers and the superintendents’ association, they are willing to compromise for the sake of the state’s school children.

Also, kudos to the local state representatives, all Republican, who sponsored the bill: Kevin Anderson (Rogers), Cecile Bledsoe (Rogers), Shirley Borhauer (Bella Vista), Horace Hardwick (Bentonville), Eric Harris (Lowell) and Mike Kenney (Siloam Springs).