Talk Business & Politics Daily: The Brown on Business, Mike Poore town hall edition

Editor’s note: You can watch the full video of today’s Talk Business & Politics Daily at the end of this report, or download an audio version through the iTunes store under “Talk Business & Politics.”
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Thursday’s Talk Business & Politics Daily digital newscast features business editor Wesley Brown and Roby Brock discussing a variety of business subjects including the FinTech accelerator in downtown Little Rock, new starts in the Fayetteville Shale play, Conway and its tech growth, and surprises in the second quarter earnings period.

In addition to analyzing jobless numbers in Arkansas’ four major metro markets, Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore is also a guest on Thursday’s program. Poore, the former Bentonville School Superintendent, participated in a town hall with KATV on Wednesday night.

POORE ON POLICY
Poore was placed in his new role in Little Rock on July 1 after Arkansas Education Commissioner chose not to renew then-Superintendent Baker Kurrus’ contract.

Poore joined KATV’s Chris May and Beth Hunt as well as TB&P’s Roby Brock for the town hall conversation. In addition to discussing some of Poore’s personal background – he was once a basketball coach in Colorado and thought about going to law school – Poore offered his thoughts on needed changes to state education policy, a timeframe for the LRSD regaining local control, and the charter school controversy.

Chris May: We promised that we would talk about charter schools. What impact do you think that charter schools are having on the LRSD right now – positive or negative?

Mike Poore: One of the things is, it’s a reality, okay, that we have charter schools and it’s a law that has been in place for a long period of time and so you know the one thing that you won’t see this superintendent do is throw up your hands and say. ‘Oh it’s over!’ I don’t believe that. I think that you know we need to do a great job, first off internally, of marketing the things that we can do as a school district.

The charter schools are competitors in a sense of, you know, that money and where the students are. But there is also is an opportunity in my mind of things that we can do that in some ways emulate some of the model that they have done. They have made parents say they’re a better option. We need to understand why parents think they are a better option. And then solve our own problems. And so I am much more into saying, ‘Here is what we are going to go do,’ than worrying too much about what the charters are doing. But I do want to understand what it is that makes a parent maybe go towards them.

May: There are though, as we know, some very powerful people, some very wealthy people in the state who are advancing the cause of charter schools. How do you as an administrator balance that reality and the political pressure that can come along with it if that collides with what you think is best for the district?

Poore: … I’m going to twist that a little bit and take advantage of the question: You know, these same powerful folks are saying there is money for charter schools. Why can’t that money also be available for charter conversions for public school districts? If we say we are going to care about kids and all kids, then I think that is something that we can ask of where the money is at. So, I view this is we have more things available to us right now as school districts to be innovative and creative and we need to take advantage of it, but we also need to push the people that have those financial strengths to also be able to support some of our innovative things.

Roby Brock: You are looking at some budget shortfall as you indicated earlier (from loss of desegregation funds), so this is clearly a priority for you…

Poore: It absolutely is. You know, its one thing to say: how do we reduce revenue? There is another thing as a school district to say: how do we increase revenue? Well, how we increase revenue in one way is simple to say, what if we just tried to get 200 additional kids into the LRSD next year? Now you may say, ‘Wow that would be huge.’ But when you boil that down into the number of schools we have, that would be only each school trying to get five additional kids. That seems doable, doesn’t it? And that’s all about faith, but it’s also about trying to create programming that makes parents say, ‘We want to be there.’ And also creating safe environments.

You can watch more of Poore’s interview in Talk Business & Politics Daily digital newscast below.