Hope floats

But it could sink one day

THE ONGOING effort to keep kids in failing schools persists. Which is why it’s always described as “ongoing.” Oh, for the day when it’s stopgoing! And families can send their children to schools that give them a future without having to jump through hoops—or fear lawsuits.

The Legislature is doing its part. The elected representatives of We the People passed a law—actually, a couple of laws— that allow families to transfer their kids to the next school district over if their local schools aren’t doing the job. And in this state, there are more schools not doing the job than most of us would be comfortable in knowing. But at least families have a choice. Most families, that is.

There are still school districts that fight the law. Because for each kid that transfers out of a failing school, that’s less state money going to district offices. And money talks. In education, it fairly shouts. So some school districts, several in the southern part of the state, continue their efforts to keep kids tied to their failing schools. Even if it means forcing children into classrooms where there isn’t much education going on.

It’s an education unto itself to see the applications from all these families. We recently went through a stack the better part of an inch thick from families fleeing the Hope School District, one of the districts trying to keep kids in its schools—and kept down. For these kids want out. They want a chance. And the district in Hope is in the courts this very day to make sure they stay where they are, so the money will continue to flow into its coffers.

There’s Jack, a white kid who wants to go to the Spring Hill school district. There’s Aaryn, a black girl in the Hope district who wants to go to Spring Hill too. Matter of fact, most of these kids want to transfer to Spring Hill. It seems only natural. The 2016-17 report card for Hope High (https://adesrc.arkansas.gov/) gives the school an F grade. That despite the school spending $1,000 more per student than the state average.

Isn’t that something? For years the education establishment has been saying that taxpayers need to spend more money on schools, and decrease classroom size, and pay teachers who’ve been on the job the longest. And here we have Hope High, spending $10,946 per kid (state average is $9,807), with a low average class size of 13—and the teachers have an average number-of-years experience of 14 (state average is 11 years). It seems Hope is doing what the education establishment suggests.

Still it receives an F grade. And that’s with a low standard set by the state. (A high school in Arkansas only has to get a 55 to pass into the D range.)

But even though Hope High is not educating the students that live in its zone, its district wants to prevent kids from moving to a school zone that does. It’s unsettling. And unseemly. A school district’s top priority should be education of students. Even if those students choose to be educated elsewhere.

THERE’S Kaegan and Levi and Ellanora and Kadince and Calinda . . . The names go on and on. Page after page. And these are just the ones that want out of Hope’s schools. There are other districts that have fought the law too: Lafayette County, Camden Fairview, etc. So far the law has won. But that might not be the case tomorrow.

NB: These aren’t kids who want out of the public school system, or insist on vouchers to attend private schools, or hope to transfer to a charter down the road. (That’s another editorial.) These are kids who want to stay in the traditional public school system, but attend a school that’s not failing them.

How can they be denied?

Oh, yes, lucre. There’s that.

If these failing schools want to keep their students, then let them improve, for heaven’s sake. Until then, parents will do what’s best for their children. And state law, state lawmakers and We the Long-Suffering People will continue to help them.

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