MODERN TIMES : Here we go again

What's to become of Fayetteville High School?

— Many good people worked for the FHS millage increase. There can be no joy over itsdefeat. Shortly after the vote, School Board President Susan Heil wisely stated that she hopes people who voted against it will participate in future discussions. As one who voted, reluctantly, against the millage, I'm happy to comply. For further thoughts, see my previous eight articles on this topic at physics.uark.edu/hobson/.

Scientists like to proceed from the fundamentals. The most important fundamental here is that 2,400-3,000 students in one school is far too many. A plethora of research shows that the right size for successful student outcomes (high attendance, low dropout rate, college enrollment, etc.) is 400-900 students, and no research shows the superiority of any size much larger than this. If you have any doubt about this, please see my article of March 31, 2007, summarizing the results of more than 200 individual studies, including a 2003 study done specifically for Arkansas. A single huge school is a huge mistake, and is why I voted "no."

The defeated proposal included an important "small learning communities" concept that's a partial concession to small school advocates. But it's untested. Who knows how it would work in practice? It seemed to me not to capture the real values of a small school.

Building a second school for 1,500 students, while renovating the present school for 1,500, would get us significantly closer to the desired 400-900-student range. Better yet, reverse the questionable (because it makes an oversized school even bigger) decision to include ninth grade and build two schools for a maximum of 1,200 students.

A second fundamental is that the high school's location will impact Fayetteville's infrastructure and quality of life, and many voters take this issue quite seriously. The board's first proposal, to build one large school out beyond Interstate 540, was a nonstarter for this reason alone, as was the second proposal for another peripheral location. It turned out, luckily, that the University of Arkansas would not purchase the old FHS property, necessitating retention of the present school grounds. The final decision was for a single large school (that's bad) at the old location (that's good). I weighed these and decided to vote against the millage while not actively campaigning against it. My decision was reluctant, and so was the decision of most voters I've talked to so far, regardless of how they voted.

As evidenced by many quoted comments from the public, from the chamber of commerce, from school officials, and by a Northwest Arkansas Times column devoted to this question, FHS' 7A football category played a major role in coming to the crucial one-school decision back in February 2007. Football should be an irrelevant factor in this decision. Citizens are free to make whatever arguments they want, but I urge school officials and the chamber to cool it with this line of thinking.

Perhaps we're all making too big a deal of thisentire matter. The reality is that the only aspect of the building that makes much difference is its size: It needs to be small. It's the quality of the teaching that's important, not the building. I suspect that many Fayetteville voters knew this intuitively as they votedagainst an expensive building. I know that a few inspiring teachers such as John Remmers, Milton Burke and Robert Nierlich made all the difference to my kids as they went through FHS. I doubt if the building made much difference at all.

So far as the building's quality is concerned, Fayetteville already has a serviceable building. According to Robert Maranto's excellent commentary in these pages on Sept. 17, the Arkansas Department of Education ranks FHS better than 87 percent of Arkansas public schools as regards the condition of the building. There's no reason to trash the "old" (1952) building. A common-sense approach based on simply adding another building to accommodate the space needs of the cafeteria, band and choir, while renovating the "old" structure to accommodate classrooms only, might have won the millage election because it would have been far cheaper. I hasten to add that I'm not advocating this approach, because a single school will be far too big.

As I read "The Global Achievement Gap," which the board wanted everybody to read, I noticed that school buildings were hardly discussed. Except for the size issue, they seemed unimportant. Toward the end of the book, the author offers three exemplary schools or coalitions of schools. All individual schools had 400-800 students in grades nine to 12.

A recent presentation by Steven Peterson of Pennsylvania State University, sponsored by the University of Arkansas department of education reform, supported the notion that the building makes little difference. Peterson's central finding was that the amount of money schools spend on construction has no measurable effect on student achievement.

Jess Smith published a nice column in these pages on Sept. 18 arguing that people voted against the millage because it was too expensive, and because Fayetteville needs two high schools. I agree, although I claim zero expertise in figuring out Fayetteville, or any other, voters. Tx Trumbo, who lives in Fayetteville and teaches in Springdale, has written many excellent letters and columns arguing that one school will be too big and that Springdale renovated their existing school and built a second school for far less than the planned $116 million cost of Fayetteville's single new school.

Fayetteville needs to hang on to the quite serviceable building it already has, and add a second school in a different location.

Art Hobson is a local resident and retired physics professor who is the author of "Physics: Concepts and Connections," a college-level textbook for nonscientists. His column appears every other Saturday.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 09/26/2009

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