It was a good week for …
ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY. A study committee there seems prepared to bow to the inevitable — ASU must drop Indians as a mascot because of the NCAA rule against use of Native American symbols.
EXECUTIVE POWER. The Little Rock City Board scheduled discussions on giving the mayor veto power and the ability to hire and fire key administrators.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST. State Board of Education member Naccaman Williams, who’s paid to help shepherd charter school funding provided by the Walton Family Foundation, continues to vote regularly on charter school applications that come before the state board. Surprise: He’s nearly always amenable. His actions included a pivotal vote this week for continued support of a charter school reporting declining test scores and a student body with few minorities in the middle of Hispanic-rich Benton County.
BICYCLISTS. Central Arkansas Transit rolled out bus bike racks this week.
COOLING OFF. Little Rock School Board President Katherine Mitchell decided not to press for an emergency suspension of Superintendent Roy Brooks, preferring to wait for a May 30 hearing on a recommendation that he be fired. Hope remains that the cooling-off period could provide time to work out a negotiated departure of the divisive superintendent.
It was a bad week for …
The ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE. It continues to report inaccurately the facts surrounding the use of National Guard troops to block desegregation of Central High School in 1957. The idea of the skewed recapitulation of events is to make the federal court look bad and to make Gov. Orval E. Faubus look good. It so happens that the editor’s father was attorney for the segs’ interest in 1957 legal action.
STATUS QUO IN HIGHER EDUCATION. Gov. Mike Beebe said he would propose a plan to tie state funding to student retention and graduation rates. One question this raises: can grade inflation be