No Push For School Election Turnout, Walton-funded Group Says

The education reform group Arkansas Learns spent $100,000 on radio and newspaper ads, online messaging, and automated telephone calls in 2013 to try to increase voter turnout in school elections. It’s not spending its money that way this year because it doesn’t believe the effort made a difference.

President and CEO Gary Newton said Tuesday that the group in 2013 targeted school districts in contested races to try to increase turnout, which historically is very low. The group did not advocate for any candidates. Chamber of Commerce leaders in various communities were asked to record the messages for the automated calls.

“It was probably the first concerted effort to ever do a voter turnout campaign on a school election, and it just didn’t make that much difference,” he said.

Arkansas Learns was founded with support from the Walton Family Foundation and counts the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce as one of its supporters.

Turnout is expected to be very low again in today’s school elections across the state – one notable exception being Jacksonville, where patrons are voting on whether to split off from the Pulaski County Special School District.

During a recent Rotary Club address, Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Randy Zook asked for a show of hands for how many people knew when the school elections would be. According to Zook, only half a dozen raised their hands.

Newton’s group in the 2013 legislative session advocated moving school elections to the November general election, but the bill failed. He said a similar effort will be made in 2015.

“You have the largest local government entities in Arkansas, the decision-makers for nearly 50 percent of all general revenue and two-thirds of local property taxes that are making the decisions on spending over $5 billion a year decided by hundreds, if not in some cases tens of people,” he said. “So as long as democracies are the way we choose to govern our school districts, then we need to treat them as true democracies and not hold elections on an obscure date in September but hold them when people actually vote.”

The Arkansas School Boards Association (ASBA) opposes moving the election to November. It says doing so would place school elections on a crowded ballot where they would get lost among the other races. Unlike many of the offices on the general election ballot, school board members are unpaid, nonpartisan positions.

Newton said the Little Rock School District, which features two contested races, is an example of the importance of school board elections. “It is a critical election for Little Rock. If it goes one way, we could have our 23rd superintendent in 32 years,” Newton said.

Editor’s note: Steve Brawner publishes a magazine, Report Card, in partnership with ASBA.