Tough School Issues To Be Decided By New Faces

The Education Committees in the House and Senate feature many new faces deciding tough issues, a 10-10 partisan split in the House, and a chairperson focused on workforce education.

The committees are chaired in the House by Rep. Bruce Cozart, R-Hot Springs, and in the Senate by Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock.

English, who spent her career in economic development, comes to the role after switching her vote from no to yes on the private option in last year’s fiscal session in exchange for a commitment from then-Gov. Mike Beebe to make workforce education a priority. After the session, she chaired weekly meetings much of the rest of the year with state education and economic development officials. She says the education system is composed of too many disconnected silos that don’t prepare students for the workforce.

“We typically think of education as K through 12, but for me, education is K through job,” she said after selecting the chairmanship.

English plans to introduce three career education bills in the Senate on Tuesday.

Her eight-member committee consists of four members, including her, who weren’t on it before the session began. Five members are Republicans, and three are Democrats. Sen. Eddie Cheatham, D-Crossett, is a retired educator, while Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, and Sen. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan, served on school boards.

Cozart, who spent 10 years as a member of the Lake Hamilton School Board, is one of at least four members on the House Education Committee with school board experience, the others including Rep. Charles Armstrong, D-Little Rock; Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris; and Rep. Reginald Murdock, D-Marianna. The vice chairman, Rep. Sheila Lampkin, D-Monticello, is a retired educator, and at least six other members have an education background. With 12 of the 20 members new to the committee, it’s even more inexperienced than the Senate’s. And because the partisan split is 10-10, compromise will be required to pass anything.

During fiscal year 2014, state spending on education was $2.735 billion – about half of the general revenue budget. As a result of the 2002 Lake View Supreme Court decision, school funding is governed by a complex formula meant to ensure adequacy and equity, and the state is under a constant threat of a lawsuit if someone can convince a lawyer both goals aren’t being met in a particular school district.

School funding is mostly determined during the interim between sessions by the Joint Committee on Educational Adequacy, which is composed of members of the House and Senate Education Committees. It issues an adequacy report before each regular session that legislators typically follow, even though the committee membership changes after an election.

This year’s adequacy report recommends increasing foundation funding, the big check the state writes to school districts, from $6,521 per student in fiscal year 2015 to $6,584 in 2016 and $6,646 in 2017 – smaller increases than have been done in recent years. The committee recommended increases in other school funding categories as well as providing at least $65 million to shore up a school building fund that has been exhausted in recent years.

Another education issue facing Arkansas lawmakers is expanding broadband access to all schools. A wide disparity exists between school districts, which could lead to an adequacy lawsuit. The big argument has been whether or not schools should connect to ARE-ON, the high-speed network available to universities and medical providers. A report released to the Legislature in December favored using private providers. Cozart said the momentum is not with ARE-ON after that report.

The other big education issue in recent months is school employee health insurance, which probably will be assigned to the House Insurance and Commerce Committee, Cozart said. Legislators have twice met in special session to address rising costs. Hendren, who chairs a task force studying the issue, sees promise in wellness programs that could reduce the cost of health care.

Nationally, the Common Core has become a hot political issue. It doesn’t seem likely that legislators will dump the standards completely, but Cozart said there is interest in removing Arkansas from the PARCC assessment, a testing service that now includes 11 states and the District of Columbia. On Friday, Mississippi became the latest state to withdraw from the consortium.

During the recent gubernatorial campaign, Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s signature education proposal was a requirement that all high schools offer computer science. That seems very likely to pass.

Certain to pass is a new school choice law because the current one sunsets this year. This was a difficult issue in 2013. Legislators heard compelling arguments from those who said parents should have the right to send their children to the best available school, and others who feared the result would be resegregation along racial lines. The 2013 law, passed late in that session, required the results of the law to be studied in preparation for this year’s session.

Supporters of a wide open choice law say the competition for students will force schools to improve. The same arguments will be made for providing state vouchers for parents to send their children to private schools. Voucher proposals have always failed in the past, but Cozart said there seems to be some momentum this year for vouchers targeted to students with special needs.

Change will occur, but radical change is unlikely. Asked what to expect, Hendren said, “There’ll be a drift … towards more conservative and more innovative type of education. I don’t know whether it’s vouchers, or whether it’s more emphasis on charter schools or alternative education type of experiences, but there’s going to be more willingness to try different things and perhaps push back against the education establishment.”

Hendren notably used the word “drift.”

“I think there will be some pretty good reforms that weren’t possible before, but is there going to be a privatization or a voucher bill? Probably not, because the politics (still aren’t) there. … I don’t think a true voucher bill with no constraints is politically feasible, particularly on the House end, and I don’t know that it would pass on the Senate end,” he said.