School Problems The Same, Only Different

EVERY BENTONVILLE CANDIDATE NEEDS TO MAKE HIS OR HER POSITION ON EXPANSION CLEAR IN CAMPAIGN

Brenda Blagg’s column summed up the Bentonville millage defeat the first Friday after the election.

She nailed the problem. So today’s column is more about the chances of fixing that problem.

Like Fayetteville’s School Board, the Bentonville board must convince voters it cares what they think. Each district got thumped in a millage election for a new high school. Blagg points out Fayetteville closed the rift with voters by sending out index cards to thousands.

These cards asked why they voted against the plan.

Fayetteville came back with a new plan based largely on what they found out. That passed. It also didn’t hurt that the so-called stimulus package from the federal government threw in nointerest fi nancing.

The problem in Bentonville is their board went through a much more in-depth public hearing process than Fayetteville before their election - and ignored what they got.

The rebellion was in full swing when the Bentonville board ordered a scientifi c poll. Patrons confi rmed what anyone with working eyes and ears already knew: They wanted a second high school, and by a big margin, too. Confronted with clear evidence the ninth-grade center idea was going nowhere, the board was forced to set a vote ona second high school - a proposal they loaded up with sports facilities. By the time the package went to a vote, 18 cents of every dollar was going to go to sports.

Gosh, could it be decisions on the Bentonville boardare largely driven by sports passion? Splitting the high school was opposed by sports boosters who like the dominant teams a very large student body helps to provide. When voters choked on the idea of a ninthgrade center, the response appeared to be: “OK. OK.

We’ll give in - as long as sports doesn’t suff er.”

So the diff erence between Fayetteville and Bentonville is largely this: Fayetteville’s board said, “OK. We’re listening now.” Bentonville’s in the position of having to say, “OK. We’re listening now. Yeah, we said we were listening before, but we mean it this time.”

Springdale School District also had a vote on a millage that included sports stuff . It failed. They lopped that stuff off and it passed. They didn’t, however, have the bad blood you get by asking voters what they want before theelection and then ignoring it.

So in Bentonville’s case, I’m not sure just lopping off the 18 cents out of every dollar the district wanted to spend on sports will get a millage passed next time.

The best solution here is largely built in: regular school board elections. Every Bentonville candidate needs to make his or her position on expansion clear in the election campaigns. They also need to stick with whatthey say after they are sworn in.

Nothing wipes a slate clean quite like an election, which will do more to rebuild public confi dence than anything. You don’t have to be a pundit to fi gure that one out.

Now, for an issue a little more nuanced:

Last week, I said polls would be worth watching in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling on health care reform. This just in from Mark Blumenthal, the pollster who established his credibility before his site was bought by the Huft ngton Post (huft ngtonpost.com) and has maintained it since:

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll “asked what opponents should do in light of the Supreme Court decision. More than half - 56 percent - want Obamacare foes to ‘stop their efforts to block the law and move on to other national problems,’ while just 38 percent hope opponents will ‘continue trying to block the law from being implemented.’ Those saying it’s time to move on include 26 percent of Republicans and 51 percentof independents who lean to neither party.”

I still think Obamacare is opposed more bitterly in Arkansas than in other places. I still think people will get elected to the state Legislature on false promises to do something to stop it.

Just don’t expect the ride to last past this election.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.

Opinion, Pages 14 on 07/08/2012

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