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State should have more control of local school funding, senator says Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The state should have more control in how local school districts spend money on education, Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, said during an education conference Tuesday. Arkansas has made great strides in education funding and other reforms since the state Supreme Court declared the state's public school funding system unconstitutional in 2002, Argue said. But the state should have greater oversight of local spending of millions of dollars in state education funding, he said. "Educating children is a state responsibility, so what are we doing with 245 branch offices?" he said, referring to the number of school districts and the freedom they have to spend state money on education as they see fit. "Teaching fourth grade in Camden isn't any different than teaching 4th grade in Fordyce," he said. "Fourth is fourth grade, so why are we looking at two different districts to invent the wheel, locally, when there is so much of it (the state) can do on their behalf?" Argue, who is term limited, was Senate president pro tem during the 2005 session and is currently chairman of the Senate Education Committee. He was keynote speaker Tuesday at a conference sponsored by the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. Karen Smith, superintendent of the Hector School District in Pope County and secretary of the Arkansas Rural Education Association, said in an interview she was not sure what additional control or oversight Argue would have the state take over local school spending. "I'd like to know whether he's talking about instructional strategies or other programs," she said. "I think there are a lot of districts doing a good job educating children with the funding they have ... (test) scores are up." The conference focused on the future of education in Arkansas now that the Lake View school funding case, which challenged the adequacy of school funding in the state, is over. "We've made significant progress in the last six years," Argue told about 100 educators at the conference, adding that education is directly related to economic growth and prosperity. "It's through education reform that we change our future, or continue to be robbed of our future by a low per capita income," he said. Last year, the Legislature earmarked $456 million to overhaul dilapidated school facilities and increased education funding by $121 million over the next two years. The state Supreme Court commended the expenditures and, along with sweeping academic reforms and more than $1 billion overall in additional funding over the past six years, declared the state's public education system adequate and closed the Lake View case. The issue of state control over local school spending came up during a question-and-answer session after Argue's speech Tuesday. "We say, 'Here are the resources that ought to be in every school and here is how much those resources cost, depending on school size, and here is the money,'" he said. "What we don't do is then say, 'Here is how you are going to spend it.' "The districts bristle at that. They don't want anyone to control how they spend the money, but we're asking the taxpayers to provide the money. Yes, that sounds kind of big brotherish, but I want the kids in Fordyce and Camden to have the same opportunity," he said. To illustrate his point he recalled how in 2003 the Legislature appropriated more than $1.5 million to school districts to hire instructional tutors. In 2006, the Legislature learned that few instructional tutors had actually been hired and that most districts used the money to pay for other teachers. "We'd spent millions of dollars but we don't have instructional (tutors)," he said. Dan Farley, executive director of the Arkansas School Board Association, and Tom Kimbrell, executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday. |
