I actually don’t have a lot of knowledge about Fogleman’s career as a judge, so I can’t attest to how good or bad it has been. But, according to the Dem-Gaz, the length of his career is more important than its quality.
Yesterday the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette endorsed John Fogleman for the State Supreme Court. The reason? Well, according to the editorial writers, he’s been around a long time. In what amounts to one of the worst written editorials to come out of the DemGaz in recent memory, 814 words are used to fill a column space that essentially amounts to one single point: Fogelman is good because he has been around a long time. Here’s an excerpt:
For example, it would help if a candidate had long judicial experience. Say, 15 years as a circuit judge in Arkansas. Or, before that, if he had been a prosecuting attorney for 11 years. And a city attorney for 13 years. And been engaged in private practice representing a variety of clients and meeting their needs for 13 years. And if, over the course of his long public and private career he’d worked with law enforcement officers like sheriffs, prosecutors, police chiefs and other judges, a number of whom had come to regard him highly enough to endorse him for the state’s highest court.
We’ve just described in capsule form the legal and worldly experience of one John Fogleman, who’s running for Position 3 on the state’s Supreme Court in Tuesday’s elections. He’s opposed by a candidate who’s been an appellate judge for only a year and, before that, was a Court of Appeals clerk for eight years. In terms of real-world experience in the law, courtroom experience (28 years of it in Judge Fogleman’s case), and contributions in general to the law, there’s really no comparison-except a lopsided one in favor of Judge Fogleman.
And it goes on and on. Not once does the column mention any case that Fogleman has been a part of, nor are any of his legal philosophies discussed. The column is just one long exercise of repetition about an essentially irrelevant point.
The Dem-Gaz ends their article with this:
Nothing beats actual experience in the lower courts, where the law meets the citizen, for preparing an appellate judge. After all, would you want to hire a school principal who’d never taught a class, or, in a field we’re more familiar with, an editor who’d never written a word of copy?
Of course, there certainly are times when a principal who has never taught a class could be preferable to one who taught classes poorly. And if this editorial was the product of experience…well, you get the point. It doesn’t matter how long Fogleman has been around if his service hasn’t been particularly exceptional.
The most amazing thing, however, is that the endorsement said nothing about Fogleman’s role as the prosecuting attorney in the West Memphis Three case. How does one write an 814 page endorsement and not mention that Fogleman played a crucial (and highly questionable) role in the most famous case in Arkansas’ recent history? Just a few months ago CBS ran a nationally televised hour-long program that detailed how poorly the case was handled, yet somehow nothing about the West Memphis Three case is mentioned in the Dem-Gaz’s endorsement? A good treatment of Fogleman’s conduct during the case can be found in this Arkansas Times article by Mara Leveritt.
Fogleman isn’t the only person of West Memphis Three fame running for office this year. Judge David Burnett is running for the Arkansas Senate. I’ve expressed my feeling about Burnett in a previous post here. Needless to say, the prospects of either of these guys winning elections bothers me.
As Mara Leveritt points out in her blog, the best way to keep these guys out of office is to show up on election day and vote for their opponents. Fogleman’s opponent, Judge Courtney Henry, seems reasonable enough. I don’t know much about Barry Harrison, who is running against Burnett, but I find it hard to believe he could be any worse.
UPDATE: John Brummett says he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Fogleman because of his role in the West Memphis Three case. He makes some arguments about why a person might consider letting Fogleman off the hook. However, while the arguments are good, they’re not good enough.
A couple of weeks ago Brian mentioned an Ed Next article we wrote with our colleagues Gary Ritter and Nate Jensen. The article, titled A Closer Look at Charter Schools and Segregation, challenges the methodology used in a study of charter schools and racial segregation released in February by the Civil Rights Project (CRP) at UCLA. Our article is scheduled to appear in print this summer, but the debate is already in full swing. Today the Ed Next blog is running a response to our original article from the CRP authors, followed by a reply from us. You can find their response here, and our reply here.
In their response it is evident that the CRP staff either misunderstand or choose to willfully ignore the substantive methodological concerns we raised in our article. Instead they simply chose to reiterate their rightness, failing to engage in meaningful debate.
Even though they failed to address the methodological flaws present in their report, it is a greater disappointment that they failed to acknowledge the larger and more damning points we raised in the concluding paragraphs of our article.
In the closing portion of our reply, we bring the discussion back to what we believe are the most compelling arguments for why the CRP report is fatally flawed.
1) First, neither the traditional public schools nor charter schools are doing a particularly good job at drawing racially diverse student bodies. Those genuinely concerned with the racial segregation in schools should focus their attention on traditional public schools, where the vast majority (97%) of U.S. students are enrolled.
2) Families that send their children to charter schools are making a choice that best fits what they seek in an educational experience. To compare this choice to the forced segregation that occurred a half century ago is a trivialization of the true oppression that occurred. And to refer to these schools as “apartheid schools,” which implies that families are legally and physically required to attend segregated schools, is nothing more than alarmist rhetoric. Such charges would be more appropriate if they were leveled at traditional public schools where students in residential boundaries are forced to attend segregated schools.
The Civil Rights Project has a history of seeking justice and we commend that. But the organization is simply on the wrong side of this issue. First of all, the empirical data do not support the CRP claims. Moreover, although the group’s leaders have called for regulations to encourage more integrated charters, vocal critics of charters will certainly use the conclusions drawn from the CRP differently. And, if critics of charters were successful in limiting the growth of charter schools, the educational options available to poor and minority students would be further restricted. We and the CRP authors would certainly agree that this outcome would not enhance the civil rights of our nation’s disadvantaged students.
The City of Fayetteville, like many local governments, is facing a budget squeeze as revenues have declined without a commensurate reduction in expenditures. In those instances, responsible public officials should explain to voters that either certain services will need to be cut or taxes raised.
We don’t have that kind of public official in Fayetteville. Instead, our local officials seem to fancy themselves as slick politicians in the minor leagues, honing their skills at the art of public manipulation so that someday they may get called up to the big leagues of deception and lording over other people.
To offset the shortfall in the city budget, Mayor Lionel Jordan and his backers have proposed grabbing money from the hotel, motel, and restaurant (HMR) tax that is currently dedicated for park development so that they can use it to cover park maintenance and then redirect the general operating funds currently devoted to park maintenance to other parts of the city budget.
Jordan and friends are saying they want voters to approve changes in the HMR tax so that the revenue can be used for things other than the development of parks, giving the city more “flexibility.” This is just doublespeak. The flexibility they want is the flexibility to reduce park development spending so that they can keep other city operations unchanged.
Personally, I prefer the development of more parks and the cutting of other city services. Our parks and public bike trails are some of the best things about Fayetteville. But I could be persuaded that we needed to defer additional park development to avoid cuts in other services if they presented the trade-offs directly and honestly. Make the case that additional park development is less important than other city services that would be continued.
But no. Our local public officials refuse to treat us like grown-ups and have to use deception rather than presenting us with difficult choices straightforwardly. This is the same kind of doublespeak nonsense we saw with the business license proposal. That wasn’t really about “helping promote local business.” That was about facilitating the taxation and regulation of businesses while helping the Chamber of Commerce effectively compel membership.
And don’t buy the fall-back argument on the HMR tax change that says we are in danger of developing so many parks that the cost of maintaining all of them would be prohibitive. If this were true, advocates for changing the HMR tax would need to present facts about rising park maintenance costs. They haven’t. Park maintenance costs have not been growing at a significantly faster rate than the city budget. In addition, park maintenance only costs $1.9 million out of a total city budget that exceeds $120 million. The HMR tax dedicated to park development generates about $2.3 million per year.
And also don’t buy the argument that we are just correcting a “mistake” from when the HMR tax was initially adopted. It may well be that city officials meant to include maintenance and development as potential uses of the tax, but that’s not what was on the ballot and what voters ultimately approved. We can’t know whether voters would have approved the measure if it had permitted the funds to be used for park maintenance as well as development. And voters are under no compulsion now to allow the money to be redirected for other purposes. If city officials want to convince voters to approve the measure, they need to make the case that those new bike trails we are developing are less important than other uses for the same money.
Update: The NWArk Times is endorsing the tax change (subscription required). They say a lot, but don’t offer up many good points. I think the question is simple: If you really want more parks and trails in Fayetteville, and you think there are other places where the city could cut funding before they cut park development funding, then you should vote against this change.–BK
Some of you may have heard that there was a small earthquake in Northwest Arkansas last week. What you may not know is the reason. Well, it turns out that earthquakes actually have nothing to do with shifting tectonic plates. According to an Iranian government official and cleric, earthquakes are women’s fault, specifically women who do not dress modestly (think burqa).
Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.”
If you’re keeping up with current science, then you already know that Pat Robertson discovered that gays and lesbians were responsible for hurricane Katrina, and that the earthquake in Haiti was a result of their pact with the devil. Of course, a major difference is that here in the US we are free to make fun of Pat Robertson-types. In Iran, these types of lunatics run the government.
Here in the U.S., many women tested Sedighi’s theory by conducting a massive “Boobquake.”News reports claimed that the Boobquake failed to trigger an earthquake. I guess they failed to notice the small one that hit NWA.
Then again, the local quake could have been our own fault.
In the South Park clip above Cartman takes on a Glenn Beck like persona after being given the responsibility of making the morning announcements. In the course of the episode Cartman makes many outrageous declarative statements in the guise of questions. Is Wendy Testaburger using your lunch money to buy heroin? How can we know? Cartman claims to be just like other kids except he is brave enough to asks questions.
In his own Beck-like (or Cartman-like) moment, last week U of A Professor Paul Hewitt was brave enough to ask some important questions about charter schools in this Arkansas Times article. He opens the article with a flourish of questions.
In the popular 1989 movie “Lean on Me,” about a Paterson, N.J., ghetto high school, Principal Joe Clark has all the troublemakers and under-performing students gather on the stage and he then kicks them all out of the school. With only the most serious students remaining, he restores his high school to its once proud position.
The movie, based on a real life situation, reflects pure fiction. Or does it? Is it possible to exclude the undesirable students and just skim off the best students to make elite, selective and even racially segregated schools? Can we, under current law, develop one school system for the “haves” and another system for the “have nots?” If you think this isn’t possible, just look carefully at the charter school movement and its more extreme sibling, voucher schools.
In this introductory paragraph Prof. Hewitt poses some relevant and substantive questions: Are charter schools creaming the best students? Are charters leading to greater segregation economically or racially? The problem with Hewitt’s questions, like Cartman’s, is that he primarily indicts by asking questions without really examining the evidence to answer them.
We do not have to wonder about the answers to these questions. There is a fairly extensive literature that Hewitt fails to address or even acknowledge. Here is some evidence on whether charters cream taken from one of Stuart Buck’s old posts.
Parents whose children are doing well in the public schools often tend to stay put, while it is precisely the parents whose children are struggling who may tend to seek alternative schools (whether through vouchers or charters). Painting with a broad brush, many charter school and voucher parents have said, “Gee, little Johnny isn’t doing so well, maybe I should check into a different school.” Such “motivation” doesn’t give rise to some sort of huge charter school advantage.
Some evidence for this point: Zimmer et al.’s October 2009 paper analyzing data from locations representing 45% of the charter schools in the nation. They find NO evidence that charter schools are cream-skimming. To the contrary, “in all but one case (Chicago reading scores, which are virtually identical to the district-wide average), students switching to charter schools have prior test scores that are BELOW district-wide or statewide averages.”
On whether charters lead to great segregation, the best work (studies that use individual student data) on this question, such as that done by RAND in 2009, reveals that since charters generally locate in racially segregated urban areas, the students they attract come from relatively segregated traditional public schools. In the end, as RAND tells us, students who move into charter schools generally choose schools with racial compositions similar to those of the traditional public schools they exited. My collegues and I have a piece in the forthcoming summer issue of Education Next that finds a similar result with aggregate data . Take a look at Brian’s post from earlier this week for a more detailed description of our article.
Hewitt never mentions any of this or other research on the questions he raises. Instead, he offers information on two individual charter schools. For example, Hewitt cites racial composition data for the LISA charter school in Little Rock and compares that to other surrounding schools to draw conclusions about the segregating nature of charter schools.
However, one data point does not constitute a pattern. Last fall the Office for Education Policy investigated the effect of charter schools on segregation in Little Rock using student level data, using information from all charter schools in the area, not just one. You can find it here. We have talked about this study many times before. Here is the money quote from the study.
…the majority of student transfers from LRSD traditional public schools to charter schools are actually resulting in students entering into more racially integrated learning environments. Over half of the white students that left above-average white schools enrolled in a charter school that was more integrated (with almost all white students that left integrated schools enrolling in similarly integrated schools). Further, minority students that leave above-average minority schools or well-integrated schools are enrolling in charter schools that are equally or more integrated than their previous school.
In other words, transfers to public charter schools have the net effect of both leaving traditional public schools more integrated as a result of the transfer, as well as increasing the level of integration at the schools they transfer to.
Prof. Hewitt continues with the rhetorical strategy of indicting by questions without examining evidence for answers when he suggests that charter schools discriminate against children with parents who don’t “truly care” or who don’t “monitor (their child’s) education.”
In Arkansas we call privately operated charter schools “open enrollment schools.” In reality, are these schools truly open enrollment? Does every child have an equal opportunity to enroll? The first ingredient is that the child must have a parent who truly cares and monitors his or her education. It is far less likely that children from an impoverished single-parent home will have a parent who is aware of the enrollment hoops they must jump through to enter a charter school. How about the child whose parents are drug addicted or don’t have the capability to enroll them in the charter school?
Are charter schools deriving additional revenue from selling heroin? How can we know?
Hewitt is not really making an argument with evidence by raising questions like this, he is just getting in touch with his inner-Cartman.
To answer these “when did you stop beating your wife”-type questions — Of course, charter schools are open enrollment. Legally they must accept anyone who chooses to attend, and this opportunity is available to all. This is in stark contrast to traditional public schools where attendance is limited to geographic boundaries. Think about schools located in wealthy neighborhoods; they would also fail to be truly public schools by Prof. Hewitt’s standard. The barriers to entry for these schools are much more difficult to overcome than those required to attend any charter school. To attend one of these well-to-do public schools, you must first be able to afford housing in the wealthy neighborhood, and I guarantee you this is a much higher bar than any “enrollment hoops” at a charter school.
As an interesting thought experiment, let’s apply the claims made by Prof. Hewitt to traditional public schools.
First, do traditional public schools teach every child? NO. They can and do expel many students every year. Not to mention that in Little Rock, as in many other districts around the nation, we have created magnet schools explicitly designed to recruit only high-achieving students.
Second, does our current system of traditional public schools lead to racial and income segregation? YES. To attend a school you must, by-and-large, live within it’s attendance zone, and if you look at residential patterns in the U.S. you will find we do a pretty good job of segregating ourselves by both race and income. If we are truly concerned about limiting segregation, then we should try to detach schooling from housing, which is precisely what charter schools do.
Later in the article we find Prof. Hewitt bemoaning the student turnover at KIPP saying:
The KIPP Delta College Preparatory Academy in Helena-West Helena reports, according to state Education Department figures, a “student loss” rate in the eighth and ninth grade that is between three and four times that of the Helena-West Helena School District. The “student loss” occurring at KIPP would be a scandal if it took place at a regular public school, but charter schools seem to remain under the radar when it comes to serious scrutiny. This process leaves the KIPP schools with only the most dedicated students and parents, while the rest go back to public schools.
In replicating Prof. Hewitt’s result I found out just how convenient it was that he limit his analysis to the 8th and 9th grades. If we include retention from the 7th grade in the student loss calculation, the story looks a lot better for KIPP. KIPP has a student loss rate nearly 5 times lower than Helena, with a negative loss rate (or growth) of -1.6% while Helena has a positive loss rate of 0.4%. Looking only at 8th and 9th grades is inappropriate because it emphasizes the student mobility that occurs between junior high and high school. KIPP generally gains students, but at the 9th grade transition it loses some students to traditional high schools that offer more intra-mural athletics.
If you would like to replicate my analysis, I used enrollment data from the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years to complete this calculation, and you can find the data here. From what I can tell, Prof. Hewitt’s analysis (and my reanalysis) simply compares enrollment in a cohort from one grade to the next.
In the end Prof. Hewitt asks 11 “questions” in his piece. He cites virtually none of the systematic research literature and offers only two school data points, one of which is incorrect.
It’s certainly important to raise these questions, but it is even more important to consider them carefully, making use of systematic evidence to answer them correctly .
EDITORS NOTE: To get the full effect, play both videos at the same time.
The TV airwaves in Arkansas are filled with third-party ads supporting Bill Halter against Blanche Lincoln. Here’s one:
And here is a basic translation of what the ad says:
I’d like to be able to say that Senator Lincoln’s ads in response are any different, but they aren’t. And the Republicans aren’t yet running many ads, but their rhetoric is basically the same. Arkansas politicians seem determined to fulfill the worst stereotypes that people may have about the state.
UPDATE: So, I commented on Jay’s blog that to get the full effect you should play both videos at the same time, and he replied with this:
Sherlock Holmes (played here by our very own Stuart Buck) has solved the case of the missing teacher pension liability. In a new report, coauthored with Josh Barro and sponsored by Foundation for Educational Choice and the Manhattan Institute, Buck and his coauthor adjust state reported pension funding shortfalls to calculate the actual unfunded liabilities, and the results are quite striking. They find that “these plans’ unfunded liabilities total about $933 billion.”
This topic has been in the news quite a lot lately. Here and here are a couple of articles that appeared in the New York Times just in the last month.
Why should you care? First, because you, the taxpayer, are on the hook for nearly $1 trillion. And second, because these unfunded liabilities have the very real potential to strain state budgets to the point that other spending priorities, like education, might really suffer.
Check out the table below to see how Arkansas stacks up against our immediate neighbors.
The city’s Economic Incentives and Job Growth Group held a public input session on the proposed city business license last night. Based on the report in the Northwest Arkansas Times, it looks like the group received some push back on the proposed license from at least a few local business owners.
It appears that our city leaders do not understand that the burden of proof is theirs. In my view of responsible government , when the city wishes to levy a new tax, they must provide some rational basis for the new requirement. The city could argue that the services supported by the new tax would increase the individual’s welfare or possibly the social welfare of the city as a whole. But, I have yet to see a single city official or chamber staff member make a reasonable case for having a business license.
Don Marr, city chief of staff, has made the argument that the business licence received ”overwhelming support” at Fayetteville’s economic development summit, and that the Chamber of Commerce likes it. He is quoted as saying, “You can’t go to a single place to find this data.”
Karen Minkle, director of strategic planning and internal consulting, continually states that Fayetteville is the only city of any size in the state that does not require a business license.
Well, OK, but these are not convincing arguments that Fayetteville should institute a business license. First, just because some people, mainly the small number that would obviously benefit, are in favor of requiring a licence does not mean it’s right for our city. And second, who cares if several other city’s are doing it? What are the reasons that Fayetteville should do it? What benefit will the citizens of Fayetteville gain through the institution of a business license?
The city’s case for the license was best articulated in a report prepared by Ms. Minkel dated March 2. You can find it here. The city claims that the reason for having a business license is threefold (the following is an excerpt from the study):
Economic Development: The lack of data prevents economic development organizations from providing statistics on job growth and business sector growth and ultimately providing meaningful economic performance measures. Some of these measures include new jobs created and new businesses opened. Without a systematic method for collecting this information, confidence in the accuracy of the measures will be compromised.
Public Safety: The lack of data also contributes to inefficiencies and public safety concerns. The Central Dispatch Division spends significant time attempting to track new business openings, moves and re-namings. The Fire Marshal’s office also needs this information in order to ensure that new businesses meet current fire codes. In addition, the City lacks information on the storage of hazardous materials and installation of fire suppression systems. The accuracy of this information is crucial for responding to emergencies safely, effectively and efficiently. The Arkansas Department of Health also lacks information about restaurants and food related businesses in Fayetteville, resulting in inefficiencies in its ongoing inspection program. Determining when businesses open, relocate or close also takes significant staff time that could be better spent providing inspection services, according to an interview with James Shumate, Arkansas Health Department Inspector. The haphazard process also increases the likelihood that a restaurant or other food service provider will slip through the cracks, which if a problem arises, could be detrimental to the health of Fayetteville’s citizens and visitors.
Law Enforcement: A business registry and license program will also assist the City Prosecutor’s Office in addressing code and tax violations. An ordinance that requires a business license in order to conduct business in the City of Fayetteville will provide additional leverage for the City Prosecutor’s office in resolving code and tax violations before they result in a warrant or criminal summons.
Number one does not hold water upon further inspection. The chamber already collects information on their members and a large proportion of businesses in the city are chamber members. And, as Aaron Stahl put it in the NWA Times article linked above, “I have yet to find a business that’s not in the chamber (of commerce), that’s not in the Yellow Pages, that’s not googleable.” The truth is that, in this digital age, promoting your business is easier than ever, and many businesses use internet advertising extensively. Given that it is very easy to find businesses on the web already (have you used Google maps lately), the marginal benefit of economic development activities resulting from a business license is not likely to be worth the cost. Businesses would be better off spending that money, even if it is a meager amount, promoting their business independently on the web or otherwise.
Numbers two and three could be valid grounds for requiring a licence. If there truly are public safety and law enforcement benefits that might be realized by instituting a business license, then I am all for it. But, this case has not been the most prevalent in city officials public statements. If these are the real reasons for wanting a registry of all businesses in the city, then the city, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Marr or Ms. Minkel, need to make the case publicly. Let’s dispense with this “We just want to promote you” BS.
The Arkansas legislature listened to a report from Paul Atkins, of the Bureau of Legislative Research, on Tuesday descriptively linking school expenditures to student achievement. You can view the report here. Mr. Atkins did a great job making it clear in his statements that legislators (and the public) should be careful drawing causal conclusions from this purely descriptive analysis, but one thing the report clearly demonstrates is that after Lakeview, we are providing our poorest districts with more resources. On the flip side, this report also demonstrates that money is not everything, or at least it can’t magically turn things around. Take a look at the following portion of the Dem Gaz article:
Regarding revenue per student from all sources (federal, state and local), the top quintile of districts received $10,753 per student.
Those same districts had the highest percentage of students – 75 percent – on free and reduced-priced lunches from the federal government. This is the indicator the state uses to show poverty.
They also had the lowest percentage of white students (58 percent) and the lowest percentage of students scoring at proficient or greater (also 58 percent) on the Arkansas Comprehensive Testing, Assessment and Accountability Program, known as ACTAAP.
Atkins also found that the quintile with the highest percentage of proficiency (81 percent) had the lowest percentage of poverty students (48 percent) and the highest percentage of white students (89 percent).
This group also posted the highest percentage of expenses on instruction, 60 percent. The lowest ACTAAP quintile spent the least on instruction, 56 percent.
Atkins said that could be because the districts with better academic scores might pay their teachers more than other districts.
It turns out that it may be how districts spend their money that really makes the difference. It is curious (or maybe not so curious) that the best performing districts spent the most on instruction. I am inclined to believe spending more in the classroom will make a difference in achievement, but this report and this data cannot answer that question exactly. It is likely true that high poverty districts need more support support staff because their children come to school with more problems. However, these poor districts also experience the greatest difficulty recruiting and retaining high quality teachers, and teacher pay is likely part of the problem. If the state is looking to, as Jimmy Jeffress said, get “any bang for our buck”, it is time they took another look at strategies to recruit and retain high quality teachers in these poor districts.
Another interesting takeaway from the report is that by the state’s measure of growth the poorest districts, where we spend the most money, are not catching up. In fact it appears that while they are improving, the richer district’s scores are improving at a faster rate. Here is what the Dem Gaz quote:
Over the past two years, the percentage of students scoring at least at the proficient level in the quintile with the lowest ACTAAP scores went up by 9 percent from 2007 to 2009. The highest scoring quintile posted proficiency scores that were up by 12 percent.
If simply spending more money in the same old ways really did the trick, we should be seeing at least some evidence of this in the data. This report is a reminder that overcoming the difficult challenges associated with poverty require clever, innovative solutions, not just more of the same.
A couple of weeks ago 
The City of Fayetteville, like many local governments, is facing a budget squeeze as revenues have declined without a commensurate reduction in expenditures. In those instances, responsible public officials should explain to voters that either certain services will need to be cut or taxes raised.
Some of you may have heard that there was a 
