One who saw the light

LITTLE ROCK — To better understand the iceberg that sank the Fayetteville millage last week, consider what Becky Purcell had to say this past spring.

A member of the Fayetteville School Board for two years, Purcell was the lone maverick among her colleagues, the local Chamber of Commerce, local newspapers, labor unions and the mayor, all of whom pushed for the millage increase. The intellectual honesty she displayed by sticking to her guns is a lesson for those serving on public bodies across Arkansas.

It's never a warm and fuzzy feeling for a person to speak against the desires of colleagues sitting beside him or her. That's especially true when you're swimming against the flow of a school board that fires all boilers to convince taxpayers to tax themselves an additional 4.9 mills for at least three decades.

Here is what Purcell had to say during the May 28 school board meeting:

"While I would love to support a millage increase that prudently addresses our high school's space and other deficiencies, I cannot vote to place a 5- to 6-millage increase before our citizenry in this time of economic recession when the proposed millage is tied to demolishing current assets and designing a campus based on '"small learning communities,' a concept we have [neither] defined nor developed with our high school teachers, without whose full support the concept cannot succeed. Our schools belong to the community, and should our community pass such a millage, I will gladly continue my work on our board for every student to achieve his or her full potential within the school design desired by our citizenry."

In light of the fact that a record 10,039 voters turned out to reject the proposed millage increase by 59 percent, Purcell clearly was in tune with the feelings of the majority well before the campaign kicked off in earnest.

This soft-spoken mother of three who is working on an advanced seminary degree speaks of Fayetteville moving toward embracing a small community learning concept of teaching that had yet to even be defined or developed with the teachers. Yet aren't teachers the very ones who'd be expected to make it all work? Aren't they also the ones responsible for Fayetteville's 14 National Merit finalists, named last week, the second highest number in the state behind Little Rock's Central High's 20 (itself a very old school, by the way)?

My math says that's an amazing 34 Merit scholars between two schools in aging facilities. That fact alone deserves full explanation. The public wants and needs to hear why that is. After all, it was estimated two years ago that the existing Fayetteville High School facilities could be made college-worthy for about $11 million. That same year, the Arkansas Education Department ranked the FHS facilities among the top 12 percent in the state. They needed just under $7 million through 2011 in renovations to push them to the top of that list.

Purcell could see the light through the fog of exorbitant speculation four months ago. She clearly understood that it would be a mistake to place an enormous millage increase before the citizens and taxpayers in a severe and prolonged recession, especially without much more input and involvement from educators and the community.

She could see that although many 21st century learning concepts may indeed be positives for the students, these techniques have never been tested in Fayetteville.

And she just wasn't willing to shut her eyes and hop aboard such an expensive and unproved bandwagon, thereby abandoning a proven educational program that, while in need of improvements in specific areas, is perhaps the finest all-around high school in Arkansas, judging by performance records.

"I didn't know how vote would go," Purcell told me, "but because schools belong to the community, I knew I could work with what a community wanted, even though I had a great reservation with where we might be headed.

"I don't see the millage defeat as a negative at all. It clears the way for our new superintendent to study more carefully and do what she needs to do in other areas today."

Purcell said the board should listen to Superintendent Vicki Thomas and allow her to develop her ideas.

I salute Purcell for the discernment, fortitude and insight she displayed last May, and I ask every member of a school board, city council or quorum court and anyone who serves the public to remember her and those like her who are willing to leave the comfortable herd for what they believe is right.

Sounds like front-porch common sense to me. Why would any school board elected by the community to serve its families move toward an experimental and unfamiliar education approach without significant teacher input and community meetings at which the people being asked to foot such an expensive bill can be heard?

After all, the children and the money involved belong to the people, not to the school district, as Purcell might note.

Mike Masterson is opinion editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Northwest edition.