Advocacy at cross purposes: superintendent groups work to narrow the divide when finding themselves on opposite sides of contentious issues.
School Administrator › Vol. 61 Nbr. 3, March 2004
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Advocacy at cross purposes: superintendent groups work to narrow the divide when finding themselves on opposite sides of contentious issues.
Superintendent Jimmy Cunningham recognized the moment he parted ways with his urban colleagues on just how school funding should be meted out in Arkansas.
The Arkansas Supreme Court had declared the state's school funding system unconstitutional so the Arkansas Association of School Administrators had gathered 10 urban and 10 rural superintendents around a conference room table at the University of Arkansas to hash out a proposed efficiency model that could drive future school funding. This would be the funding model presented to state lawmakers with one united voice. Author Mary Hughes, an associate professor of educational administration at the university, was outlining the model's variables. Thirteen of the variables would be cost related. Another 14 would be performance based. Those school districts that met the minimum expectations would be maintained. Those that didn't would be consolidated with neighboring districts. Cunningham, superintendent of the rural Plainview-Rover school district of about 300 students located 1 1/2 hours west of Little Rock, realized the 40 districts targeted by the formula were all high-poverty, high-minority districts. Cunningham's hand shot up. What about family income? What about the percentage of free-and-reduced lunch? "I remember her answer being, 'I don't know if high free-and-reduced lunch is good or bad,'" Cunningham recalls. "Right then I knew we were not on the same...See the full content of this document
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