Harmonious Dissension? Part II.

When the Little Rock School Board indicated in July that it was not completely happy with the district’s superintendent, some observers may have had a sense of déjà vu. It was only two years earlier that the board voted, 4-3, to buy out the remaining two years of then-superintendent Roy Brooks’ contract.

Brooks, an African-American, was favored by the board’s three white members, but not by its four African-American members. The buyout cost the district $635,000.

Dr. Linda Watson, an African-American, and at that time the district’s senior director of student services, took over for Brooks on an interim basis. Later, the board decided, again by a 4-3 black-white vote, to hire Watson long term.

In recalling Brooks’ departure and Watson’s ascendancy, board member Baker Kurrus said in a recent interview, “It was tumultuous. … Not our brightest moment.”

Even though he voted against hiring Watson — as a protest against the board’s not conducting a search for a replacement — he said he called Watson the morning after her hiring and told her: “I would do all I could to support her.” Kurrus, who is white, said he told board members Katherine Mitchell and Michael Daugherty, who are African-Americans: “We’re going to work through this.”

There still seem to be some issues to work through.

Kurrus said the district has needed, since the late 1990s, to make changes to become more streamlined and efficient, structurally and administratively. Asked for specifics, Kurrus noted support staff, such as those who perform clerical tasks. With the Internet, for instance, administrators can do much through e-mail that once required clerical workers. “We have the same number of support people as we had 12 years ago. … Things have changed, and the school district has not,” Kurrus said.

Test scores on standardized tests are another issue.

The Little Rock School District’s Web site touts gains in math while acknowledging modest gains in literacy on the 2009 Arkansas State Benchmark exams. “While literacy scores continue to slowly creep up, there is no doubt students are rocking the test in math,” the site states. Mitchell echoed the sentiment at a July board meeting. “I’m just real pleased with the test scores,” she said.

Where Little Rock students were “rocking the test” was in sixth- and seventh-grade math, where proficiency increased by 11 percent in each grade, from 52 to 63 and from 39 to 50, respectively, between 2008 and 2009. Otherwise, students showed slight increases, 2 percent to 5 percent, in proficiency scores.

For instance, among third graders, the percentage scoring proficient in math increased 2 percent, from 65 to 67; in literacy, the proficiency level was up 3 percent, from 49 to 52.

In an interview, Kurrus said the district is clearly doing better, but slight increases overall are not enough. Many peer districts showed greater improvement, Kurrus said.

Just across the Arkansas River, for example, North Little Rock third graders’ scores jumped 12 percent (from 56 to 68) in math and by 12 percent (45 to 57) in literacy.

Meanwhile, the Little Rock district is losing students by the hundreds to private, parochial and public charter schools, and thus faces losing millions in state financing.

Chief among the district’s competitors for students is eStem Public Charter Schools Inc. (The first word in the name is an acronym for economics, science, technology, engineering and math, subjects the schools emphasize.)

Housed in the Arkansas Gazette building at Third and Louisiana streets, eStem opened for the 2008-2009 school year, enrolling more than 800 students through the ninth grade.

The Little Rock district’s enrollment dropped by about the same number.

In an interview, Watson noted that the district had enjoyed slight enrollment increases before last year: 26,524 in 2005, 26,691 in 2006, and 26,757 in 2007. “Before that [eStem’s opening], we were seeing some growth,” Watson said.

And eStem’s affect is just beginning to be felt. It is expanding into the old Federal Reserve building at 123 W. Third St., across the street from the Gazette building, and eventually will have students through grade 12.

As eStem and other charter schools grow, attracting higher-performing and more affluent students, so grows the concern among Little Rock district officials that the system will re-segregate along racial and economic lines. The concern prompted considerable discussion at that July board meeting. It was only last spring that the district was declared legally desegregated.

Perhaps adding irony to injury, eStem is headed by the man the school board let go two years ago: Dr. Roy Brooks.


This is the second in a series of articles about the Little Rock School District.