By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — In his speech to lawmakers at the beginning of this year’s legislative session, Gov. Mike Beebe said public education was his top priority and a constitutional obligation.

But other issues grabbed attention during the recently concluded 88-day session as lawmakers cut the grocery tax, raised tobacco taxes, put together a patchwork $4.4 budget and laid the foundation for a state-run lottery for college scholarships.

For the most part, public education this session faded from the headlines the issue constantly commanded for much of the decade after a 2002 state Supreme Court ruling declared Arkansas’ public education funding system unconstitutional.

Officials wouldn’t have it any other way, after approval of sweeping reforms in academic and accountability standards, nearly $1 billion in new funding to pay for them and merging scores of small rural schools satisfied the court in 2007 that the state could provide adequate educational opportunities for all of its 455,000 students.

“Lake View” was Beebe’s simple answer last week when asked why public education did not prompt major debate during the session. He was referring to the long-running school funding case first filed in 1992 by lawyers for the now-defunct eastern Arkansas school district of the same name.

“The Legislature learned from that (case), and the Department of Education learned from that,” the governor said.

Among the reforms adopted since the high court’s 2002 ruling is the Legislature’s ongoing evaluation of what constitutes an adequate education. Beebe, legislative leaders and state Education Commissioner Ken James credited the work lawmakers did between the end of the 2007 session and the beginning of this year’s General Assembly in January with keeping public education out of the spotlight.

The big issues were studied and recommendations made, and all that was left was for the Legislature to approve, they said.

“The reason you didn’t have the big headlines is that you’ve seen us get to a point in the state’s history that we’re comfortable with the laws that have been passed, we’ve been blessed by the Supreme Court, who say we have a constitutional system,” James said. “I think we’re at the point in the state where you don’t see a lot of wavering back and forth.”

Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant, agreed the end of the Lake View case played a major role, but he said the 2007 session set a precedent for the process of determining adequacy in public school funding, particularly in conducting an adequacy study, collecting evidence and making a case to the governor and the full Legislature.

In its 2007 decision relinquishing jurisdiction in the school funding case, the Supreme Court praised legislative approval of the law requiring biennial education adequacy review and making education the state’s top funding priority, saying they are “cornerstones for assuring future compliance.”

It was that requirement, officials said, that allowed much of the work on education funding to be done outside the confines of the Legislature.

“So, this was kind of our first session with that … to work with,” Broadway said. “We started that review … most of that is done between sessions so there shouldn’t be, especially from the funding side, a great deal that happens during the session.”

With limited funds to work with due to declining revenues in a recession — the law requires full funding of public education, regardless, as the state’s top funding priority  — the Legislature approved a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that includes an additional $28 million for K-12 education over the current fiscal year to increase per-student funding from $5,789 to $5,905.

Lawmakers also approved an additional $35 per-student enhancement aimed at funding schools at a level higher than the amount the Legislature determined is needed to provide an adequate education.

Additionally, lawmakers appropriated up to $15 million to help public school teachers with their health insurance premiums, as well as $17.3 million from one-time surplus funds for incentives for teachers who see increases in the number of students scoring a 4 or 5 on their end-of-course AP exams.

A bill also was passed and signed into law as Act 1481 of 2009 that offers incentives to school for the number of students they graduate who complete the Smart Core curriculum.

Under the proposal, a school would receive $150 per pupil if 100 percent of graduates completed the curriculum, $100 per student for schools with at least 95 percent participation and $50 per student for schools with at least 90 percent participation.

Estimated cost of the incentives is $3 million annually, with the money coming from existing divisions within the state Department of Education.

“Those will go along way in rewarding what we need to continue to work on in terms of moving the bar higher,” James said. “Just because we make progress, we never have to fall into the position that the work is done.”