MODERN TIMES
by Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
REFORMING ARKANSAS
EDUCATION
The state Supreme Court did Arkansas schoolchildren a favor by shining a bright light on Arkansas schools, ruling that their funding is unconstitutional, inequitable and inadequate. Now it’s up to all of us, acting through the state legislature, to fix things.
There is considerable agreement on several good ideas: more pay for teachers; tests comparing schools and comparing Arkansas with other states; mandating that every school teach 38 specified courses every year; and additional remedial help for low-performing students.
Teacher pay is tops on my list. Good schools require excellent teachers, and excellent teachers will not, in the long run, be attracted to a low-paying profession. Arkansas salaries are nearly $10,000 below the national average, and the national average is considerably below that of other industrialized nations. Suppose that Arkansas teachers’ salaries were all raised by $10,000 per year. The tab for this would be $320 million per year--less than half the cost of most reform programs now being touted to the legislature. We could make no better investment.
Where will the billion or so dollars needed for real reform come from? High on the list should be canceling state funding of school athletic programs. These programs might be entertaining for sports addicts, but they are not cheap, and they’re certainly not educational except perhaps for the one athlete in a blue moon who actually makes it into professional sports. In a revealing Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article, Ben Mays of the Clinton School Board stated that these programs represent “a $200 million-plus annual expenditure whose illegitimate inclusion in the education budget is sanctioned neither by constitutional mandates nor curriculum standards.” I’ve checked this figure with several Arkansas educators, and they all report that $200 million is probably an underestimate. Apparently, sports-crazed school boards hire coaches, assign them to also teach a regular class, and then pay them two salaries. Total salaries of these coaches often come to $30,000 above the salaries of experienced regular teachers.
We should not feed the sports addictions of local boosters at state expense. Athletic programs should be self-supporting from donations, ticket receipts, etc. This $200 million should go toward school reform. Representative Betty Pickens has proposed limiting sports spending to some $55 million, which is better than $200 million but still wasted money.
If we’re interested in our students, we will consolidate many of Arkansas’ smallest school districts. Like other college teachers, I’ve heard many tales of woe from students entering college out of schools with graduating senior classes of only 20 or 30. They were tops in high school, but they’re failing college. They are surprised to be assigned to several zero-credit remedial courses to make up for gaps in their high school education. We have short-changed these students.
Consolidation can also save us some of the money needed for school reform. During his recent phone-in television show, Governor Huckabee estimated that modest consolidation that increases Arkansas’s student-teacher ratio from 14 to a more efficient 17 could save $250 million. It stands to reason that the cost per student is likely to be higher in smaller districts. For example Lake View, the district that started this fuss, has fewer than 200 students. Arkansas spends $7,300 per pupil annually in that district, about 25% more than the $5,900 spent per pupil in the entire state. And it’s difficult to imagine that, with under 200 students—under 20 in the entire senior class--and with only 17 teachers, Lake View can competently offer all 38 mandated courses every year.
There is surely some number below which a district’s student population is too small. 200 is surely below that number. Huckabee originally proposed a lower limit of 1500, and then compromised three times down to 500, a number that implies a high school graduating class of only some 40 students, which seems too small. The problem is, rural legislators have stubbornly vowed not to accept any number, no matter how low. This is irrational, and if maintained will keep Arkansas mired in the educational wastelands.
The governor has been remiss in not providing a careful assessment of how much money consolidation might save us. But legislators who missed the opportunity to join in early behind Huckabee’s consolidation efforts have been far more remiss. Hopefully, it’s still not too late for meaningful consolidation.
Even with some $450 million in savings from consolidation and from abolishing state funding for athletics, something like $500 million in new tax money will be needed if we want to do this job right. The easiest place to get it happens to also be the worst place: sales taxes. Sales taxes are preferred in Arkansas because of a cruel constitutional provision: Income tax increases require 75% legislative supermajorities, while sales tax increases require only 50%. Thus we protect the rich while making it easy to soak the poor. The richest one percent of Arkansans make over $240,000 per year, while the poorest nineteen percent make under $12,000 per year. It’s sad but true that the richest pay less than 6% in total state and local taxes, while the poorest pay more than 11%. This is steeply regressive, and should make Arkansans ashamed. We need to fix this cruel constitutional provision.
Most of the new tax money for school reform should come from non-sales taxes. If sales taxes must be raised, then such a raise should be balanced by tax credits for the poor or, better yet, by removing the scandalous sales tax that Arkansas imposes on groceries.
Arkansas has gotten itself into a fix. While we work on the immediate problems, let’s also stay focused on the long-term problems, such as sports addiction and a faulty constitution, that got us here.