MODERN TIMES
Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 15 September 2007
For the kids, for Fayetteville: vote Purcell
School
Zone 4 goes to the polls this Tuesday to elect a new school board member to
replace retiring member Christine Bell.
It's the most significant school board election in years, affecting
everybody—not just those with children in school. If you live in Zone 4, it's your civic
duty and your moral responsibility to vote. As we saw last April when road impact fees failed in a
low-turnout tie vote, every vote counts.
Zone
4 covers a large area in the northwest, northeast, and center of town. It includes almost everything north of
Sycamore and west of Gregg, plus almost everything northwest of I-540 and north
of Wedington (much of it outside the city limits), plus neighborhoods south of
Township but northwest of Mission between Crossover and College, dipping all
the way down to East Prospect in the middle of town. For a map, go to fayar.net, click on "School
Board," then click on "Board Zone Map." It's an interactive map that you can
enlarge. Polling places are
Trinity United Methodist at 1021 W Sycamore, and United Methodist at 1910 Old Wire
Road.
Turnout
at past school board elections has been a dismal five to ten percent. This means that only 500 to 1000 voters
could determine this crucial election.
Every one of those votes does, indeed, count!
If
you're from Fayetteville and haven't been hiding under a rock, you know that
the big issue is Fayetteville High School's future. We're outgrowing our present centrally-located school. Will we have one humungous school of
3000 or more, or will we go to two schools? The school board says it has already decided in favor of one
school, but the decision was made on a 4-3 school board vote that left many of
us unhappy. It's clear that this
election could reverse that decision.
Even if it doesn't, the question of location remains undecided: Would a single high school be out in
the northwest boonies past I-540 where it will create long commutes and massive
sprawl, or in its present central location?
The
published research about school size overwhelmingly supports smaller schools of
500 to 1000 as superior on the basis of academic achievement, student
attitudes, truancy, crime, violence, participation, attendance, dropout rate,
interpersonal relations, and teacher attitudes. Two massive "meta-studies," each summarizing the
conclusions of over 100 research papers, come to this conclusion--see my
articles of February 3, March 31, or June 23, at physics.uark.edu/hobson/.
In
an August 20 Northwest Arkansas Times
article, Fayetteville's associate superintendent opined that "there's not
a lot of conclusive research about school size and achievement," and a
school consultant opined that the literature on school size is suspect because
it's not peer-reviewed. I
disagree. There's plenty of
conclusive peer-reviewed research supporting smaller schools, as you can see by
checking out those two meta-studies and their extensive lists of references. Furthermore, there's practically
nothing supporting schools of 3000 or more.
As an experiment, try doing an internet
search on "school size."
When I did that last year, and again last week, I found that 9 of the
first 10 hits supported smaller schools, with the 10th expressing no
conclusion.
A
recent clincher in this debate is New York City, which is replacing hundreds of
3000-student high schools with schools of around 500. Forty-seven of the smaller schools have opened since 2002. The aim is to create an intimate
learning environment where course offerings are both novel and rigorous and
every students knows every teacher.
The results are striking:
The small schools quickly improved attendance, promotion rates, and
graduation rates. Mayor Bloomberg
has committed the city to opening at least 200 more small schools.
All
of this makes it clear that two 1500-student schools would be a heck of a lot
better than one 3000-student school.
Becky
Purcell (www.beckypurcell.com/) and Mary Lynn Mantooth (mlmantooth.org/) are
running for the open school board seat.
Purcell,
an early signer of a petition to keep FHS centrally located, states that
"I believe it is in the best interests of our students to keep FHS in its current location." Her preference, before the board voted
for a single high school, was for two high schools. She states that "3,000 students is too big," and that "the board needs to back
up and conduct better conversations than it has to date before any decision is
made on the high school. ÉIt's
been a divisive, destructive conversation. ÉThere needs to be further discussions on school
size." Since this election
replaces a board member who voted for a single school, her election could
easily reverse the board's 4-3 vote.
Mantooth
did not sign the petition to keep FHS centrally located, and turned down an
offer by the petitioning group to meet and discuss the issues. She is still evaluating the high school
site location, saying there are problems with the current centrally-located
site. She expresses no criticism
of the one-school decision, and no criticism of the school administration's
leadership on this issue. It tells
you a lot that Christine Bell, who provided the swing vote in that 4-3 decision
to stick with one huge school, supports Mantooth.
School
board members are good hard-working people, and I applaud their civic service,
but the high school issue has not been handled well. A vote for Mantooth is a vote for more of the same. A vote for Purcell is a vote for needed
re-consideration of recent decisions, and for a better way of doing the school
board's business.