One LRSD and the teachers union

Here's a little background for you folks who do not live in Little Rock Arkansas:

The long story short is that our schools here suck and many of the schools in the Little Rock School District (LRSD) were failing to maintain mandatory minimums on standardized tests.  Now the whole 'Common Core' thing can be debated ad nauseam elsewhere but suffice it say these poor kids were not getting it.  Funny I should mention 'poor' kids because guess what?  Most of the failing schools were in the poorer, blacker parts of town.  For folks who don't know their American history Little Rock AR is the home of Central High one of the hotbeds of the segregation movement in the 60's.  Back in 2015 the state board of education disbanded the LRSD board and took control of the failing district.  Now that things have improved the state is ready to give control back to the local board.  Sounds like a happy ending right?  NOPE!  The state only wants to return local control to the board of the more successful schools and keep the failing ones under state control a little longer.  Well some of the parents in the poorer, blacker failing schools have mobilized and are protesting saying that continued state control of the schools will amount to segregation akin to the 60's.  Really.  Well there have been a few demonstrations and some people have cute 'One LRSD' signs in their yards but up until now that has been most of the extent.  Then the other shoe dropped...  The state released their official plan to return partial control at first and complete control in the near future the local LRSD board.  Oh by the way they also took away the teachers union's collective bargaining rights!  OH HELL NO! screamed a bunch of the teacher and now the teachers have walked the picket line for the first time in nearly 30 years!  The teachers union could care less who was in control as long as the union had it's say but now that the union is basically powerless they now support the 'One LRSD' movement.  Fuck the parents and students but you go messing with my right to whine about not being paid enough and I will STRIKE!!! Oh and why can the city not have full control until sometime next year?  Elections.  Not for governor or representative or anything like that.  School boards in Arkansas are elected by the constituents in their districts.  We need to have a filing period to give people a chance to sign up to run, we need some campaign time so that the candidates can convince the public who to vote for and of course we need an election itself to select the board.  Apparently people think the state can just hand over control to a board that doesn't even exist yet!

Once again I have rambled and complained and you my dedicated readers have trudged through the atrocious vocabulary, horrible spelling and lets not even get in to the grammar. 


Thanks for reading.

I have spoken.