By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Computers are no longer on the list of freebies available under a program designed to reward good students with funds generated through the sale of specialty license plates.

Some say the Arkansas Committed to Education Foundation, which runs the program, has over-promised and under-delivered.

“I certainly regret for the kids, more than anybody else,” said Greg Murry, superintendent of the Conway School District, which several years ago provided the foundation with a list of more than 150 students eligible for the License to Learn program. The district never received a response.

Under the program, prizes, called “technology incentives,” are awarded to students who reach certain academic, attendance and behavioral goals. The program initially handed out computers and other high-tech devices, but prizes are now limited to the Leapfrog Crammer, a hand-held study device worth about $100 when it came out but now priced at about $30. Some students haven’t even received that.

Board members blame the recession.

“At the time we started, if you could have had a crystal ball that could have told you what the economy was going to do,” the foundation would have done things differently, said board member Randy Milligan. “But the (stock) market was roaring” in 2000-01 when the plan was developed.

The foundation, created as a class project of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership program, is far from ready to throw in the towel.

“We’re going to go through with what our commitment was as we get the money in,” Milligan said.

The first specialty plate produced for the program, featuring a grinning bookworm, an apple and school books, was designed by Rachel Graves, a sixth-grader at Huttig Elementary School in Union County. The special tag was authorized by Act 529 of 2001.

For winning the design contest, Graves received a refurbished computer, the first of many the foundation had hoped to award. A second plate, with another design, was released in 2004.

Guy Wade, president of the foundation’s board, said the original goal was to present computers and other devices such as calculators to every qualified sixth grade student in the 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years.

The requirements included satisfactory conduct reports, a 95 percent or greater attendance in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, plus a score of “proficient” or higher on math and literacy benchmark tests.

Since the program went into effect, about 4,100 education license plates have been sold and are now on Arkansas vehicles, according to Roger Duren, administrator of the state Office of Motor Vehicles. The foundation has collected about $700,000 from the license plate sales at $25 per plate.

Wade said $200,000 of the $700,000 has gone to operational costs and salary expenses for one employee to run the program.

Even before the first prizes were distributed, the board began realizing that the plates were not going to generate enough money to cover the program’s costs, so they decided to seek grants or donations from businesses and community groups, Wade said.

The various organizations said they wanted to see some results before making donations, so the foundation went ahead and spent all the money it had at the time — $360,000 — on the prizes for the first group of students, Wade said. The money bought about 1,800 refurbished computers, 758 calculators for algebra and geometry and 414 hand-held pen/computer devices.

With little cash remaining, the foundation’s board went back to the sponsoring groups and was told the recession had “dried up” their grant and donation money, Wade said.

That’s when the board decided to stop letting the students choose their prizes and went with one prize, the Leapfrog Crammer.

Greg Joslin, vice president of the foundation, said that when the Legislature approved the issuance of the plates, only a few specialty plates were available. Now there are more than 90.

“So, did that influence our sales? You tell us,” he said.

Julie Thompson, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said the department has received 10 to 20 complaints in the past four years. The people with complaints were “concerned that (the foundation) hasn’t fulfilled all its requirements and that they are not giving out computers,” she said.

People with complaints were referred to the foundation’s director, Brandi Jones. But Jones stepped down earlier this year, and the foundation has yet to hire a new director.

Murry said the 150 students in his district were all sixth graders at Carl Stewart Middle School and one of them was the son of the school’s principal.

“I’m certain we did the paperwork correctly,” he said.

Liesa Williams, a teacher in the Hartford School District in western Arkansas, said her school also sent in a list of qualified sixth graders, including her son, and they have yet to receive their prizes.

“The kids were told if they do well … they’d get a computer,” she said, adding that the current prize, the Leapfrog Crammer, is for children up to age 14, and the students in her district who qualified are now older than that.
Wade and Milligan both said the director of the program did the best she could trying to keep up with all the information, including the tracking of the qualified students after they completed the sixth grade. They said they regret any problems.

About half of the students in the second round, 3,000 sixth graders in 2006-07, have received their gifts, and the rest will receive theirs when funds are available, Wade said.

“In a state that favors pay-as-you-go, we’re not going out and spending money we don’t have,” Joslin said. “So we try to balance the budget with our objective needs and do it the best we know how and move forward.”

Wade said the foundation’s board members are not paid and have dedicated numerous hours to trying to get the program to work.

“We have gotten nothing out of this except a lot of heartache and spent a lot more time than I think any of us volunteered into,” he said.

The foundation would like to continue the program, because license plate revenues are still trickling in every month, but with some modifications, board members said.

“Our goal is to get back together after we get the three years done and look at a program that’s possibly … well, what we’ve talked about is funding different schools, computer labs,” Milligan said.

Wade said the foundation could become something like a granting organization.

Former state Sen. John Riggs, D-Little Rock, sponsor of the legislation that became Act 529, said last week he was not aware of the financial difficulties the foundation was having, but added he was “not surprised because of the way the economy is now.”

“It’s a worthy cause,” he said. “They came to me and said they wanted to provide incentives for good behavior.”