Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.
Article 14, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution
For the purposes of this blog post, let’s assume everybody agrees that having a free society requires the development of intelligence and virtue among all our citizens. Let’s also assume (although some outliers may disagree) that education improves citizens’ chances at developing intelligence and virtue.
Now we can focus on whether our system for delivering education in Arkansas meets the requirements of our constitution. We’ll pick the lowest-hanging fruit first.
Is Arkansas’ Education System “Efficient?”
Efficient: Performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort; having and using requisite knowledge, skill, and industry; competent; capable
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/efficient
Not just no, but hell no. Arkansas’ system of education is governed by haphazard, unpredictable, toothless laws that are different for every school. The laws are changing constantly, without public input. Ever since Arkansas passed Act 1240 of 2015, all public schools are eligible to apply for essentially limitless waivers from all education-related laws.
School waivers are approved/rejected solely by unelected political appointees. Hutchinson’s Education Commissioner is the inexperienced, unqualified Johnny Key. Hutchinson’s State Board of Education is a bunch of Big Business people who are entirely in the pocket of the Walton family, with a little Oil Money and College Football representation for diversity’s sake. Neither the elected legislators nor the voting citizens of Arkansas have control over which laws govern what school, or the right to elect the people who make those decisions.
There are currently 9,997 waivers of state law in effect — including laws that are supposed to assign “mandatory probationary status” to schools that break the laws they don’t have waived.
Individual schools are on the honor system to follow whatever laws still apply to them, since the Arkansas Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) can’t possibly keep up with accountability and enforcement. Although the DESE has subpoena power, they hardly ever use it. Schools are basically free to self-report their compliance (or lie about it) with impunity.
By creating an education system that allows each school to choose which laws it wants to follow, Arkansas has developed a complicated, unstable, unenforceable system of providing public education that allows abusive educators and crooked administrators to harm our children and steal our money.
What Can We Do?
Nobody in their right mind can call this system “efficient.” Since our legislature has no say over these proliferating waivers, I think we need to take our case to the Arkansas Supreme Court. They are meant to “balance” the power of the Governor and the General Assembly. And we do get to elect our Supreme Court Justices (unlike our Education Commissioner or State Board of Education.)
So. How do we put together a legal challenge? I took the LSAT over the summer, but I’m not a lawyer yet. Anybody know a good lawyer who wants to defend public education in Arkansas?
The last public education issue that went to the Supreme Court was the Lakeview case over school funding. It is still not being followed.
Keep writing!