My family has a child at Cooper Elementary School, in Bentonville, AR — the home of Walmart. Even though Bentonville is a wealthy school district, with adequate funding to meet our facilities needs, our elementary schools have a chronic overcrowding problem. To ease the strain, Bentonville frequently re-zones the schools, while ignoring the research on class size, putting our children and their education at risk.
Last year, Cooper Elementary kept losing our child — a seven-year-old, in their care. His teacher said she just couldn’t monitor him adequately.
Why did the school put our child and his teacher in an impossible situation like this? The problem with Cooper Elementary, as with most of the public schools in Arkansas, is that it has waivers saying it doesn’t have to follow state law. Maybe if our elected representatives actually held our schools to the standards set for them, Cooper wouldn’t be losing children in its overcrowded building.
Cooper Elementary: A “School of Innovation”
Cooper Elementary (along with several other “traditional” public schools in the state of Arkansas) voted to become a School of Innovation in 2015. Cooper’s application requests higher class-size limits, but promises Cooper will keep class sizes within three students of the limits set in section 10.02 of the Accreditation Standards set by the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE.)
Cooper Elementary also asked for — and received — a waiver from the rule requiring the ADE to assign probationary accreditation status to any school found to be in violation of class size limitations. As far as I can tell, Cooper is on the honor system to keep class sizes at the max-plus-three standard it set for itself. In September, 2016, Cooper’s kindergarten class was 13 students over the limit — with no consequences for the school or the district.
What is a “School of Innovation?”
Pursuant to the “Districts of Innovation” Act 601 of 2013, any Arkansas public school that chooses to become a “School of Innovation” can apply for waivers just like the charter schools can. There are a few exceptions to what can be waived (e.g., the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act) but these other laws are easily waived through the alternative Act 1240 waiver application process. School of Innovation plans are not reviewed by any elected official or Department of Education authorizing panel. Instead, they are submitted to — and approved directly by — Governor Asa Hutchinson’s uncredentialed Education Commissioner Johnny Key.
So far, Education Commissioner Johnny Key (who was chairperson of the Senate Education Committee when Act 601 became law) has approved 268 “School of Innovation” waivers. 22 of these directly exempt schools (like Cooper Elementary) from having to follow class size limitations. They also waive teacher qualification requirements, teacher pay requirements, and statewide curriculum requirements. Notably, Commissioner Johnny Key has even waived “mandatory probationary status” rules meant as consequences for schools that violate the laws left standing.
Who Is Responsible?
Commissioner Key and the ADE have absolved themselves of any responsibility to ensure the compliance of Schools of Innovation or assign probation to rule-breakers.
This position — that the Arkansas Department of Education is not responsible for the wrongdoing of the schools under its supervision — has already protected the ADE from liability in the Dreamland Charter fraud case. The ADE argued, at that time, that it “did not have management responsibility for the operation of the Charter School during or after its closure and, therefore, was not responsible for the design and implementation of programs and controls to prevent and detect fraud and to ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, contracts, agreements, and grants.” And it worked! The ADE got off scot-free.
We all want our schools to be great. We understand that it takes flexibility and innovation to develop greatness. However, Arkansas “Schools of Innovation” are not what they claim to be. They are simply a liability shelter for politicians whose ultimate goal is dismantling the public schools and privatizing education, for private profit.
My children deserve better.