A committee that was directed last year to find ways to end animosity between Pulaski County's traditional and charter schools said Monday that the absence of a long-term, data-driven strategic plan for public education will make collaboration among schools "far more difficult" and lead to "serious inefficiencies" in spending public funds.
The 51-page report from the Little Rock Area Public Education Stakeholders Group, released Monday after more than a year's work, said the state would be "both wise and prudent to undertake an overarching strategic plan" for Pulaski County's schools -- both traditional public schools and taxpayer-supported charter schools.
"Shaping a preferred future requires careful consideration of current conditions along with the experiences and lessons of the past and goals for the future," the authors said.
Ideally, they also said, a moratorium would be placed on any building, expanding or closing of schools, and on consolidating or creating school districts in Pulaski County, until that comprehensive planning is done.
[DOCUMENT: Read the full report from the stakeholder group]
"We recognize those horses are already out of the barn and, indeed, some believe the barn has been set ablaze," the authors of the report wrote. "The resulting dust and ashes make the task of developing a community vision more difficult, but not less important."
The report, Making Connections that Count, will be presented at the Aug. 10 meeting of the Arkansas Board of Education, which formed the task force in April 2016 in the aftermath of the state board's approval of charter school expansions in Pulaski County over the vehement objections of Little Rock School District leaders and their supporters.
The report calls for a re-evaluation of the state's system for evaluating charter school applications that should better account for how a charter school and its academic program fits into the overall public education system in Pulaski County.
A large portion of the report is devoted to the importance of and tips for collaboration among the traditional public schools and public charter schools. It proposes the formation of an education service cooperative in Pulaski County and a centralized school information and student registration center.
An education cooperative -- which is used extensively outside Pulaski County -- could be a neutral site where educators from both the charter schools and traditional schools could meet and learn from each other, the authors said.
The school information and student registration center would be a resource for parents seeking written, apples-to-apples comparisons of all the different kinds of schools and the features of the schools. Those school profiles should include descriptions of the discipline policies and procedures as well as the services available to students with special education needs and English language learning needs.
Jay Barth of Little Rock, chairman of the state Board of Education, said Monday that he has reviewed earlier versions of the group's report and would be studying the final version in the next few days.
"I feel really good about the collaboration section," Barth said about his early review. "And I do buy into the notion of thinking about public education -- both traditional and charter -- in a more holistic way. There is simply no doubt that charter education is part of the landscape for public education and obviously it is vitally important that there be vibrant traditional public education options available."
Mike Poore, superintendent of the Little Rock School District, said Monday that he had not yet seen or been briefed on the report but would be reading it.
Ann Marshall Grigsby, one of the nine volunteer members of the stakeholders group that is led by Tommy Branch, has called the report both "a sales pitch and a how-to manual" for collaboration among the public education entities in Pulaski County.
The report's authors said that their call for collaboration is counter to the "prevailing trend of framing charters and traditional schools as opponents in the name of competition and choice." They said the practice has created "deep fissures," and the "corrosive split is counterproductive and thwarts collaboration."
"Competition results in winners and losers, which begs the question: Which schools and which students are we content to pronounce losers?" the authors wrote.
The stakeholders group's report comes at a time when the Little Rock district is operating under state control without a locally elected school board and has had to close or re-purpose four schools while seeking ways to pay for a new high school.
At the same time, existing charter schools in the area -- particularly eStem Public Charter Schools -- are expanding. Applications for new charter schools in Pulaski County will be considered by the Charter Authorizing Panel and state Education Board later this year.
Also, in recent weeks, there has been discussion among attorneys for the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special School districts, the state and black families in Pulaski County about the possibility of boundary changes among districts in the county as a way to resolve two pending lawsuits.
However, the Pulaski County Special district's School Board fired two attorneys and its superintendent last month, at least in part because of the school board's opposition to any boundary changes that could result in one district south of the Arkansas River where Pulaski County Special now surrounds Little Rock.
There could be as many as four districts -- the existing North Little Rock and Jacksonville/North Pulaski districts plus a new Maumelle district and a new Sherwood district -- north of the river.
The Little Rock Area Stakeholders Group's primary charge was to explore ways in which the traditional and charter schools can collaborate with one another to promote student achievement and fiscal efficiency south of the Arkansas River.
Initially, the group was to identify questions and help select research consultants who would advise the state on matters such as how to provide every student with access to an achieving school and how to meet the needs of a racially and language-diverse student population. The consultants would research why students with certain characteristics chose charter schools and how modernized school facilities could spread across the county.
Over time, the stakeholders group narrowed the scope of its work to an emphasis on collaboration. That occurred after group members realized that there was no single consulting organization that could respond to all of the issues and that the potential cost of consultants could exceed some $350,000 for a group that could not expect to receive more than $10,000 from the state for its work.
The report states that the inability to engage a research consultant and develop a comprehensive strategic plan for public education was a lost opportunity and an ongoing need. In the report, the group urges the state to pursue the planning and to do it in a way that includes broad participation by the public.
The work should include a study on how many charter school seats can be opened in Pulaski County while allowing the traditional school districts to remain viable, the report said. The work should also explore the reasons why families choose or reject particular schools in a way that goes beyond anecdotal opinions. The use of waiting lists as a measure of school popularity is inadequate, the report said.
"Authorizing multiple overlapping schools or school systems in the same geographic area is by definition inefficient," the study authors wrote. "Duplicate administrations, staff, and facilities waste scarce public funding. The only reasonable justification for such waste is a commensurate increase in effectively delivering education services."
The report also urges revisiting the 2015 State Board of Education committee study on school district boundaries in Pulaski County. That study, while not binding, favored one district south of the river and multiple districts to the north.
The stakeholders group warned that such redrawn boundaries could be viewed as an attempt to unlawfully strip black communities of their political power by diluting their votes.
The group also urged that any move to alter the school district boundaries be analyzed financially and for the effect on racial desegregation. If boundary changes are cost prohibitive, then that should be identified quickly and the Pulaski County Special district be allowed to plan confidently for its long-term future.
A portion of the report that focuses on policy issues and questions urges state leaders to rethink the process of evaluating charter school applications so that the charter schools that are approved for Pulaski County meet student needs that are not being met, be it a school that focuses on reading instruction or is located in an area that is underserved by existing schools.
Contrary to arguments made by Arkansas Department of Education staff, the stakeholders group said it appears the state is operating parallel school systems in Pulaski County.
"Charter schools aren't authorized according to an overarching placement or programming plan," the report said. "Such a plan would be based on criteria for how each new school will complement or extend the efficacy of established schools or fill a need in an otherwise underserved geographic or programmatic area.
"Instead, charters have been consistently promoted as competitors of traditional schools and apparently allowed to move into buildings that are vacant and available rather than a targeted spot on a 'this type of school needed here' map.
Besides Grigsby and Branch, members of the stakeholders group are Jim McKenzie, Tamika Edwards, Antwan Phillips, Leticia Reta and Dianna Varady.
Phillips wrote a concurring report to the main report.
A Section on 08/01/2017