Boldness Warrants Freedom

“There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one’s mind that warrants freedom.”

Cornel West

This morning, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and his Education Secretary Johnny Key are attending the Annual Fall Conference of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center (APSRC) in Hot Springs. They are guests of Scott Smith and the APSRC board of directors: businessmen, politicians, and their lawyers.

The APSRC Annual Fall Conference treats school superintendents and business managers as consumers — a captive audience of big-budget buyers who are looking to purchase technology, services, and lobbyists. Cathy Frye, a veteran journalist who recently served a three-year stint working for the APSRC, has been exposing the APSRC’s inner workings (and political machinations) in her blog, My Renegade Life. So far, her series entitled “Inside the shadowy world of the Arkansas school-“choice” movement” has seven parts.

Part four of Frye’s blog explains the APSRC Annual Fall Conference in detail, and offers instructions for “cutting the head off the snake.” She recommends protesting outside the event, and approaching the attendees from public school districts to offer information and support. So, this morning, attendees are being greeted by #OneLRSD and a bold protest on the privaterizers’ front porch against the proliferation of charter schools.

Since I can’t be in Hot Springs this morning (the realities of parenthood) I am sending my support for traditional public school districts attending the conference by recommending that they abandon their paid APSRC memberships. Stick with the Arkansas Association of Education Administrators (AAEA) and Arkansas Education Association (AEA,) which are both run by actual educators, in service of truly public education.

Public schools deserve freedom from profiteering corporate interests.

The Little Rock School District deserves freedom from state control.

It’s time to get the APSRC out of Arkansas’ public education. We must elevate what works for children and teachers — not what lines the pockets of people who are already rich.