Public school enrollment numbers saw a sharp decline in the most recent school year, according to numbers from the state Department of Education. More than 9,000 students, around 2% of total enrollment, left the state’s public schools, the largest drop in nearly 20 years. This year was the first in which school vouchers established by the LEARNS Act have been made universally available to Arkansas students.
April Reisma is a special education teacher in Little Rock and president of the Arkansas Education Association, which advocates on behalf of public schools. She tells Ozarks at Large’s Daniel Caruth that the trend away from public education could have consequences for the entire education ecosystem, and the AEA saw this move coming.
April Reisma: We predicted it, and we talked about it ad nauseam, you know, to quite a few people in the past few years since the LEARNS Act came into existence. And we could look at other states where vouchers are in place and you can see the same issues.
Now those numbers, while they sound a lot like a lot, the percentage is small. So we still are educating the majority of our students in our public schools. However, even though it does seem like it’s a small percentage, it really does hit some of our districts, giving them more damage than other districts because of where they’re located in the state or their ability to have resources. And a lot of our smaller, more rural schools are going to be more affected than our larger schools, of course, that just makes common sense, right? But I think that some of these students will realize that the choice that was made, the students and their parents, their choice that they made, was probably not the best. And they’ll probably go back to public school, but that might not be until after the money has already been siphoned off to private schools or to home schooling, you know, and then there will be no money to be able to come back to those public schools.
The biggest problem we have here with these is that our schools will have less resources, which means they’re going to have to let staff go. Our classroom sizes will get larger because there’ll be less teachers in the buildings to be able to take care of our students. Our public schools, it’s in our Constitution here in Arkansas that they need to be fully funded. And they never have been. Ever. Now they throw some money and and in funding and say that they’re giving more each year. But when we have less students, that’s not more money. That’s cutting into our funding for our public schools. So there’s even less resources than there were before.
And so schools are having to make tough choices. Where to cut to be able to fund as many programs as they can to the best of their ability. And that’s not how it should be. We’re preparing the next generation, our future leaders of this state and this country, quite frankly, and we should be investing as much as we possibly can into every single child in this state.
Now, of course, we promote public education, but we truly want every child to have the best education. And if they’re going to be in a private school or if they’re going to be homeschooled, then they need to be held to high standards, just like public schools are. And quite frankly, our public schools have to be held to even higher standards. There should be no excuse to not provide a quality education, no matter where a child attends in this state.
Daniel Caruth: And I know that the argument sometimes is framed as one of these options is better than the other, that we can have access for public schools or we can have private education, homeschool, charter schools. But can you talk about the importance of having a plurality of those, or if there is an importance for that, like should we have healthy public schools and how that can inform some of the alternative options and vice versa?
Reisma: Sure. Now there is no doubt that there are there’s a need for some of our students to be in a different setting for their schooling. I’m a special education teacher. I know this better than most, that sometimes one place does not have what a child needs, but another place might. And so we do need different kinds of schooling to correctly fit each child. And we don’t have a problem here at AEA with that. Our problem is making sure that if these entities are taking public tax dollars and are educating our children, they need to be held accountable to make sure they are educating our children to the best of their ability, if not more.
As I previously mentioned, every child, no matter where they go, should have a quality education. Everyone benefits when we have an educated populace. The only people that don’t benefit are the ones that don’t want our students to think for themselves. And Lord knows that’s not what we want. We want folks to be able to think for themselves. To help our communities to grow. Whether you live in a rural community or you live in an urban community, everyone should be able to participate in that community and be educated enough to be able to do so in the best way they know how to. And so if they’re going to be a product of a private school, they’re going to be a product of a homeschool, if they’re going to be a product of public school. Each and every product should be quality. And so that’s all we want. We want the best education for our students, and we want the entities that provide that to be held accountable.
Caruth: The LEARNS Act, as we’re seeing those vouchers come into play. More of those tax dollars are going away from public schools. Maybe we haven’t seen it yet, but do you know where districts are having to cut, what the most vulnerable parts of public schools are that are suffering because of that?
Reisma: Well, sure. I mean, we hear it all across the state. Of course, there’s more suffering, like I mentioned earlier in rural areas, but right here in North Little Rock, the last board meeting, they were talking about outsourcing their janitorial folks to be able to provide a higher pay for their teachers. We shouldn’t have to do that. Our employees all deserve a living wage, and they should all be treated equally because every person that works in a public school is an educator, no matter if you’re the janitor, if you’re a teacher, if you’re the counselor, if you’re the superintendent. Everyone sees children and they’re educating that child in all different facets. And so they all need to earn at least a living wage, if not a better than living wage. They deserve it because they are training the future of Arkansas, quite frankly. I’m worried about seeing the population of the students decline in the smaller rural schools. And eventually they’re going to have to close down. Our students shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not they’re going to have a school open to go to, and it shouldn’t matter what zip code you live in. You should have a quality education that’s available to you.
Caruth: Yeah, and it’s already difficult, I imagine, to recruit teachers into positions, especially in rural districts. But what is this ecosystem doing for recruiting and retaining teachers across the state?
Reisma: Well, recruitment was helped by the fact that the $50,000 minimum pay was great. I mean, as I think back when I went out of school and I went into my first job, I would have loved to have $50,000. That’d be great. And you know, it does look great, but then you look at the retaining part of it, and our veteran educators were not compensated. Our support staff were not compensated with any kind of raise. And so you can recruit all day long. But the retaining part is the one that’s the stickler. And when we lose these good educators, you talk about failing public schools. It’s just going to get worse and worse.
I do want to share something with you. I received an email over the Christmas break from a member who wanted to quit their membership because they were no longer going to be teaching in this lifetime. And those words, that phrase just got me because these people are suffering. And I'm an educator. I’m suffering. If I wasn’t in the position I was right now, would I still be teaching? I don’t know, and I’m a darn good teacher, and we shouldn’t have to be losing good teachers just because of bad policy. And the disrespect that’s being shown to public education in the state, and not only this state, but lots of states around the nation. It’s unforgivable, quite frankly. We need to support our public education first, and then we can take care of the rest.
Caruth: And as people see these numbers, these enrollment trends, what do you hope that they take away from this information, or what do you hope people see from it?
Reisma: Well, you know what I’m really hoping for is that eyes will be opened. Because I really don’t think folks have realized how bad it has gotten. Unless you’re actually working in a school or you’re married to an educator and hear about it when they get home, right? I definitely want our legislators to understand that public schools really do need to be fully funded first, to be able to provide the best education for our students, because, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of our students still attend public schools. We need to take care of them first. And then if there’s money left over to help students going to private schools, as long as they’re held accountable, then it shouldn’t be a problem. And if they're a quality school, they shouldn’t have a problem being held accountable.
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