A disturbing report from Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families has found that 84% of Arkansas’ schools are not properly using the funds they receive to help high-poverty children.  Here is the AACF press release (with my own emphasis added):

“Arkansas schools routinely fail to spend millions of dollars meant to help their poorest students catch up to their peers, according to an analysis of education spending data by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families.

Many school districts are rolling over poverty funds from year to year instead of investing in proven programs that help close the educational achievement gap between minority and poor children and their peers. At the end of the 2008-2009 academic year, schools were sitting on more than $25 million in unspent state-provided poverty money-called National School Lunch Act funds because the money is apportioned according to the number of students whose low family incomes make them eligible for free meals.

Only 31 of 257 Arkansas districts and charter schools-just 12 percent of schools-spent all their NSLA money in the year it was intended, according to the report “Carried Over,” the 50^th issue of AACF’s Paychecks and Politics series.

Fifty four districts carried over more than 20 percent of their poverty money at the end of the 2008-2009 year.

“Not only are many schools sitting on this poverty money year after year, many aren’t spending the money in ways that will promote greater opportunities to learn and best close the educational achievement gap,” said Rich Huddleston, AACF executive director. “Children living in high-poverty areas are missing out on an early chance to catch up to their peers when schools stockpile money intended to help them.”

Research by AACF shows that certain approaches have the greatest potential to close the academic achievement gap between minority and poor students and their peers. They are:

• High-quality before- and after-school and summer programs.
• High-quality early childhood education.
• School initiatives that promote student health.

Just 12 percent of the $157.8 million sent to Arkansas schools in the 2008/2009 school year to help poor students was spent on these proven programs. That means thousands of children whose poverty status drew extra money to their district didn’t benefit from it in the most effective way possible.

The 2009 Arkansas General Assembly considered but didn’t pass Senate Bill 987, which would have restricted the amount of NSLA money and other “categorical” funds that schools could carry over. The bill proposed limiting it to 20 percent.

“NSLA funding has great potential for promoting greater opportunities to learn and should be increased when our economy rebounds. However, with each public penny tighter than ever, lawmakers in January should require school districts to spend these state funds the way the Legislature intended,” Huddleston said. “These kids can’t wait and our economy can’t wait. If students don’t graduate from school and succeed in college, then Arkansas will suffer.”

Huddleston also recommends that parents ask local school districts and school boards whether local poverty money is being spent on proven strategies with the most potential to close the achievement gap.

In addition, the report recommends that Arkansas require schools to demonstrate what impact the poverty money they spend has on helping low-income children improve their academic achievement.”

UPDATE: The movie is now playing at the Rogers Towne Cinema.

You’ve probably seen the computer animated news stories that have been coming out of Taiwan, right?  Well, now they have a report on Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for Superman.  It’s incredibly accurate.

There was some bizarre news out of Little Rock on Monday.  First,  LRSD attorney Chris Heller spoke on behalf of the LRSD and voiced support for a new charter school proposed to help former high school dropouts.  Apparently, LRSD’s opposition to charter schools isn’t absolute.  The state Board tabled the decision for a month.

The State Board of Education also approved a new charter school that will open in Pine Bluff–the Pine Bluff Lighthouse Charter School. The parent organization, Lighthouse Academies, currently operates 14 schools in 5 states.

The Pine Bluff school district, naturally, opposed the charter.  District superintendent, Frank Anthony, spoke against the charter and engaged in a bizarre whine-fest, saying that his school would lose the state funding the district receives for the students who transfer to charters.  The Dem-Gaz reported that board member Brenda Gullett asked Anthony whether “he would deny any of his students a high-quality education even if it was provided by an organization other than his district”  (btw, kudos to Brenda for the good question).

Anthony replied, “I currently have 4,800 babies, and I would not want 4,100 of them to suffer because 700 of them left, losing that revenue would put those students in jeopardy.”

Aww, boo-hoo.  Anthony doesn’t want to let his babies leave his district, even if their PARENTS decide otherwise.  And if they do, it will hurt his other babies.

Ok, time to point out the obvious and not-so obvious.  First of all, Pine Bluff doesn’t just lose state student funding when students leave for charter schools, the also no longer have to educate those students.  In those simple terms, the amount of per-pupil money left for Anthony to take care of his babies doesn’t change at all.  But a lesser known fact is that while the district loses out on state funding, they get to keep 100% of all local funding.  Never mind the fact that most of the students who transfer to charter schools also live in the district and their parents pay taxes in the district.  That money still stays with the Pine Bluff school district regardless, while the charters have to make do with less.  So, in truth, the more students that leave to attend charter schools, the more money-per-pupil Anthony has to take care of his 4,100 babies.

Three other proposed charter schools were denied.  You can read the full Dem-Gaz article here.

It’s about time.  The Arkansas State Supreme Court is finally granting the West Memphis Three their day in court. And it won’t involve the incompetent David Burnett.  From MSNBC:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The three men convicted in the grisly murders of three West Memphis Cub Scouts won new hearings Thursday to argue their innocence, more than 15 years after they were sent to prison despite scant physical evidence linking them to the crime scene.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the hearings to decide whether new DNA analysis — and other evidence not introduced at the 1994 trials — could lead a reasonable jury to acquit death-row inmate Damien Echols as well as Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, who are serving life sentences.

The ruling was a major win for Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley, who are known to sympathizers as the West Memphis Three and have gained the support of celebrities as well as legal scholars who say they were wrongfully convicted. Echols has been on Arkansas’ death row since 1994, when he was 20, after being convicted in the deaths of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. The three boys were found beaten, nude and hog-tied in an area known as Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis.

“Damien is thrilled with the court’s decision,” said his wife, Lorri Davis. “It is the best news he has heard in his case in the 17 years he has been on death row.”

Echols’ attorneys called Thursday’s decision a “landmark victory” and praised the high court for allowing Echols to pursue his claims of innocence. Prosecutors sought to limit what evidence could be introduced under the state’s DNA law, which the Legislature passed in 2001 to give inmates an avenue to pursue exoneration.

“The decision also will affect the case of every wrongly convicted Arkansas prisoner who files a DNA innocence petition in the future,” attorneys Dennis Riordan, Donald Horgan and Deborah Sallings said in a statement.

The Supreme Court rebuked Circuit Court Judge David Burnett for not holding a hearing on the DNA evidence before rejecting Echols’ request for a new trial in 2008. Burnett had ruled that the crime-scene DNA evidence — which shows no trace of Echols or the two other men convicted of the murders — was legally inconclusive and not enough to prove innocence.

“While there is a significant dispute in this case as to the legal effects of the DNA test results, it is undisputed that the results conclusively excluded Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley as the source of the DNA evidence tested,” the court wrote Thursday.

Prosecutors maintained that the absence of their DNA wasn’t enough to prove the three men are innocent and that a jury convicted them on other evidence.

“As I’ve stated before, it is a testament to the fact that our system affords inmates multiple opportunities to be heard that this matter remains in court,” Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said. “We respect the decision handed down by the Supreme Court and my office intends to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to defend the jury verdicts in this case.”

The court also said that the new hearings should focus on all evidence that could prove the men’s innocence or guilt, not just the DNA results. Echols’ lengthy appeal includes affidavits alleging juror misconduct, claiming that the jury considered a confession that Misskelley made to police. That confession was never introduced as evidence at trial because Misskelley recanted it and refused to testify against Echols and Baldwin.

It was not clear when the new hearings would occur, and the court ordered that a new judge be reassigned to the case because Burnett was elected this year to the state Senate. The district in which the cases will be heard has 11 judges — and two are the original prosecutors in the Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley murder trials.

Administrative Judge Ralph Wilson’s office said Thursday that he was reviewing the order and the judges’ schedules before deciding who gets the case.

Burnett, who was at the Capitol for freshman orientation for state senators, said he had not heard about the ruling Thursday.

“I made my opinion and they made theirs. That’s the way the system works,” Burnett said. “I did what I thought was appropriate at the time. Times change and circumstances change, and I guess they had a different view than I did.”

Echols’ attorneys also said they would ask the court to bypass the evidentiary hearing and grant a new trial.

“We would be prepared to present the compelling evidence of Mr. Echols’ innocence to the circuit court at the hearing mandated by today’s decision,” they said. “It is clear, however, that the people of Arkansas will never be satisfied that a correct and just result has been reached in this case unless and until a new trial is granted to Mr. Echols and his codefendants.”

The case has drawn interest far beyond Arkansas. In August, a rally in Little Rock to support Echols’ legal fund featured Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, actor Johnny Depp and Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines and drew more than 2,000 people.

The Arkansas Department of Education released its adequate yearly progress (AYP) report for schools today. You can find the press release here, the school improvement list here, and a wealth of info on school accountability in Arkansas here. The paragraph below provides a summary of this year’s results taken from the press release.

Forty-one percent, or 446, of Arkansas public schools made Achieving status this year on the state’s 2009-2010 adequate yearly progress (AYP) list, which is required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Achieving schools made AYP as determined by the performance of their students on the state’s Benchmark exams. The bar for meeting AYP is higher than last year, with more than 64 percent of students required to score proficient or better on the exams for schools to meet adequate yearly progress this year to meet AYP. Another 209 schools missed the mark for AYP for the first year, placing them in Alert status, while 420 Arkansas public schools are now in some phase of school improvement.

You never know what you’re going to get when Arkansas makes a splash in the national media.  It could be a 10 year-old leading a gay pride parade, or a jailer getting fired for appearing in Playboy.

Well, this week it’s  an Arkansas School Board Member using Facebook to show the world what a big jerk he is (and showing what a gud spelir he is two).  From the Huffington Post:

“An Arkansas School Board member recently launched an inflammatory anti-gay tirade on Facebook that ran the gamut from basic bigoted slurs, to encouraging “fags” to commit suicide and announcing that he’d disown his own children if they were gay.

In response to a a massively popular Facebook initiative to show support for gay youths in response to a recent wave of suicides, Clint McCance, a board member in the Midland school district in northern Arkansas, wrote this screed, provided to the Advocate:

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.” The reaction to the post was both positive and negative, the Advocate reports. McCance responded to one detractor, saying:

“No because being a fag doesn’t give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it.” After one commenter invoked McCance’s Christianity and his willingness to seemingly talk hatefully about the families of other people, McCance wrote back:

“I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.” Towleroad has detailed screenshots of the dialogue.

A Facebook page entitled “Fire Clint McCance” has since popped up, already mustering the support of nearly 12,000 people at the time of publication.

Protesters have also started a petition to Dean Stanley, Superintendent of the Midland School District, calling from the removal of McCance from the board.”

UPDATE: Anderson Cooper coverage here:

And Arklansas’ own Max Brantley made it on MSNBC:

Over at the Fayetteville Flyer, they’ve announced that organizers in Fayetteville are planning a local Rally to Restore Sanity.  If you’ve not heard about the rally, it is being held in conjunction with Jon Stewart’s planned event in Washington D.C. later this month.  From the Fayetteville Flyer:

“Tens of thousands of people are expected to show up to the rally on the National Mall, and yesterday, we learned that UA students Roger Haak and Michael Baker Brown are organizing a local version on Friday, Oct. 29 at Wilson Park here in Fayetteville.”

*****

“I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler,” “9-11 was an outside job,” and “I’m not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners, Gays, but I am kind of scared of spiders” are some of the signs Stewart suggested for the rally.”

The rally sounds like a good idea to me.  I was reminded how ridiculous things have gotten when I heard the following ad featured on NPR this morning.  After watching it, my only question is:  What else could you ever need to know about Sharron Angle?

For many of us in Arkansas, our exciting fall football Saturday afternoon was interrupted by Nick Fairlie when he horse-collared Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett in the second quarter. Perhaps most fans were able to forget about this when backup QB Tyler Wilson came in and threw for about 500 yards until things unraveled thanks to the refs and mistakes late in the second half. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozJajhXSTJE)

In case we Arkansas football fans were able to overlook Mallett’s head injury while we focused on curious referee decisions on Saturday, we were reminded on Sunday about the violence of this game many of us love to play, watch, and support. Violent hits to the head were delivered, and concussions visited upon, so many players that it is hard to count. But, just for fun, I’ll list the few I can remember — Todd Heap of the Baltimore Ravens, Josh Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi of the Cleveland Browns (both by James Harrison, who likes to “hurt, but not injure” his opponents), and DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Jackson hit was, by far, the most painful. Take a look, but be warned that it is difficult to watch:

What’s worse, this horrific news and video came out of another college game this weekend, but it may have gone under the radar for many since the game did not involve major football powerhouses:

“Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand is paralyzed from the neck down after being injured in a game this weekend, team officials said Sunday. Rutgers Coach Greg Schiano said LeGrand suffered a spinal cord injury in Saturday’s game against Army when he made a tackle on a kickoff return with 5:10 to play in the game. The junior underwent emergency surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center to stabilize his spine but has no movement below his neck. He will remain at the hospital indefinitely”

****
I realize that these young men and adults make an active choice to play this game, just like boxers make the choice to engage in sport that may well cause severe injury. However, it does make me think of the stories of Roman Gladiator matches, in which the gladiators (some willing volunteers and some not), according to Wikipedia, “entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators”. In our large modern “Colosseums”, our football gladiators engage in thrilling (but sometimes dangerous) sport for their own enjoyment and we all benefit as spectators.

Is this OK? Perhaps society, as a whole, has decided that the collective positives of the game (excitement, physical training, discipline-buidling, camaraderie, and the potential for riches for players; excitement, fun, and community building for the spectators) may exceed the collective negatives (glorification of violence for all of us and the possibility of severe injuries for the players) of the game … Or … perhaps we choose to blissfully ignore the negatives so that we can continue to enjoy our tailgating, partying, and even community-building on football Saturdays and Sundays during the beautiful Autumn weekends.

Then, again, I may be irrationally thinking about the true danger of the sport after a particularly violent football weekend that is not representative of the actual risks facing players on a week by week basis. And I may simply be noticing these injuries more as my young children get older and closer to the age of the Rutgers football player who ran into the football stadium on Saturday, was carted out, and may never, ever, walk again.

In the end, I am not sure what to do with these thoughts? Might we all be better off with less football? And, if so, can we perhaps wait until next week to kick our football habit so that we get to shower Houston Nutt with boos when he re-enters Fayetteville on Saturday morning??

Politicians lie.  Bless their hearts, they just can’t help it.  There are things that they want and they’ve discovered that it is much easier to get those things if they don’t tell us the whole truth.  And on some level we don’t really mind their lies.  We want them to get things done and we’ve just grown accustomed to it.  Besides, we all lie — at least about small things to facilitate daily living.  So who are we to expect better from our politicians?

But maybe we should hold our politicians to a higher standard of truthfulness.  After all, they do have a legal and moral responsibility to us.  And their fibs have a much broader impact on other people than the lies of us regular people because they have power over the rest of us.

I’ve been thinking about all of this as I’ve been watching the machinations of local politics in Fayetteville.  If the politicians were honest they would just announce that they want to raise our taxes, reduce spending on the popular trail system, and don’t really advocate for the interests of most businesses.  But politicians can’t just tell us what they want.  They have to lie.

Earlier this year city officials asked us to approve a referendum allowing the portion of the HMR tax that was dedicated to the development of parks to no longer have that restriction.  They assured us that our parks won’t get cut.  They just wanted more “flexibility.”

At the time I predicted that the “flexibility” they were seeking was to cut park development spending, including for further construction of our wonderful trail system.  Sure enough, that is exactly what Alderman Bobby Ferrell proposed yesterday.  According to the Northwest Arkansas Times, “Ferrell suggested cutting money budgeted for trail improvements…”  I could have told you that they were lying when they said they only wanted “flexibility” over HMR tax proceeds, but then again I actually did tell you.

And no one should be fooled by the falsehood that Steve Clark, the head of the local Chamber of Commerce, advocates for the interests of businesses.  He doesn’t.  First, the Chamber only represents existing businesses, not future businesses.  Unfortunately, existing businesses often favor regulations and other barriers to entry that would protect them from competition from yet-to-be-created businesses.  There is no greater supporter of government-enforced monopolies than businesspeople.  So, no one should confuse the Chamber of Commerce for an organization that advocates free-market policies that facilitate business formation and growth.

Second, Steve Clark doesn’t even appear to represent the existing businesses in Fayetteville.  He and the Chamber clearly didn’t do a good enough job of advocating for local businesses to convince enough of them to pay the voluntary dues to keep him and the Chamber in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.  So, they convinced the city to tax businesses to pay the Chamber. Yes, they called the tax a “business license fee,” but that is just part of the honesty-challenged pattern. Steve Clark doesn’t really work for local businesses.  He works for the city since a large chunk of his salary is paid by the city and not by voluntary dues to the Chamber.

If you don’t believe me that Steve Clark really represents the interests of city government and not business interests, just listen to what he said in support of the latest proposal to increase the city’s property tax.  According to the Northwest Arkansas Times: “Steve Clark, president of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, said avoiding major cuts in city services, such as fire, police and sanitation, are his main priorities when it comes to finding ways to balance the budget.” (emphasis added)

I thought that protecting city worker jobs was the main priority of their unions or the politicians beholden to those workers.  Advancing the interests of business is normally the main priority of the Chamber of Commerce, but I guess that changes when the Chamber staff effectively become city employees along with the police, firefighters, etc…

“Lie” is such a strong word that we have developed more polite terms for this regular behavior by politicians.  We call it “spinning” or “packaging.”  We have these more polite terms because it is probably unfair to expect politicians to avoid distorting or shading the truth altogether.  They have to do it to get what they want done.

The problem is when we no longer recognize what is spin and what is truth.  If we get fooled into believing that “flexibility” means something other than “cutting” and that the “Chamber of Commerce” necessarily means “business interests” we are the ones to blame, not the politicians.  It’s part of their job to lie (or spin) and it is our job to be suspicious.  Unfortunately, our local media and elites are overly credulous.

I’ve never been a huge fan of teacher merit pay programs, but one question has always lingered in my mind – Why do unions oppose merit pay? Most, if not all, of the merit pay programs that have been implemented in the U.S. have unambiguously increased the pay of the participating teachers. In other words, none of the teachers were worse off under the merit pay program and many were better off. Can it possibly be true that unions are against higher pay for teachers? The Marginal Revolution blog provides a good answer to this riddle.

…most union members fear they will lose from greater accountability, even if the total size of the pie goes up.

I think accountability also provides an explanation for why merit pay programs implemented in the U.S. have shown very little impact on student learning (including the recent Vanderbilt study). Most of the short term gains that we might see under a merit pay program were already realized with the implementation of a rigorous accountability program. We might expect to see additional gains as a result of compositional changes in the teaching workforce induced by higher pay, but none of the merit pay programs in the U.S. have been operating long enough to realize this type of labor market effect.

Speaking of merit pay, the Education Reform Department had a fantastic speaker last Friday who gave a great lecture on this very topic. Karthik Muralidharan, an economics professor at UCSD, spoke about a merit pay experiment he performed in India. You can check out the video of the lecture here. The researchers found that relatively low levels of pay based on performance had a significantly positive impact on student achievement.

Karthik used a couple of pictures of a one room schoolhouse to highlight the differences between education in India, where on average educational achievement is very low and accountability is almost nonexistent, versus education in the developed world. However, he also stressed that policy makers in the U.S. could still learn from his positive merit pay results. Specifically, he wanted the audience to understand that the design of the incentives is very important; poor design will inevitably yield disappointing results.