The state of Arkansas has for the last several years—and especially since the Supreme Court found the state school finance system unconstitutional—pursued aggressive policies to consolidate rural districts, and subsequently close small schools. Those policies are the subject of much contention in Arkansas. In the summer of 2006, the fight of the rural community of Paron to save its high school from closure became a flashpoint in the Arkansas debate over rural education.
But no matter where you live, if you care about honest reporting or rural kids or good education, it’s worth paying attention to what happened to Paron, especially in the press. That’s because what happened to Paron is a not just a travesty of justice, but an object lesson in the ways an irresponsible press does real harm to rural kids and their communities.
For background purposes you need to know that the rural school district of Paron was annexed to the Bryant School District in 2004. In the spring of 2006 the Bryant district voted to remove grades six through twelve from Paron’s school and send those kids to school in Bryant. The State Board of Education subsequently upheld the consolidation decision. Paron residents fought the consolidation and sued. They initially won the right to keep the school open, at least temporarily. But after several court reversals the middle and high schools were closed. For more detailed background, see What Really Happened in Paron, Arkansas.
Events surrounding the court case in Paron made news almost daily in late summer. But, if you were just reading the Arkansas papers, you would have a hard time figuring out what the real situation was. You wouldn’t have accurate information about the school or its students, the efforts of parents and community residents, or the maneuverings of the interests that wished Paron closed.
In this Rural Matters post, we hope to expose some of the larger problems that plague the coverage of rural education generally by pointing out some of the egregious flaws in the way the Paron story was covered in much of Arkansas’s media. And, more importantly, we hope we offer more responsible ways to frame the issues facing rural schools and communities.
Misconstruing and Omitting Facts
One of the more problematic aspects of the media’s coverage of the situation in Paron was the consistent way in which important information was left out. Since the information that was excluded did not support a perspective that rural schools, especially small ones, are inferior and should be closed, there’s a strong impression that ideology trumped fact in most coverage. Here’s a sampling of some of the ways omitted and misconstrued facts created a false impression of the school in Paron.
Academics. The press widely reported that Paron was on “academic and fiscal distress,” the allegations made against it by Bryant district when it was arguing to close Paron. The implication was left to hang, without investigation, that Paron students were doing poorly.
Realities were different, however.
Paron students performed above state and district averages on the vast majority of state indicators, its graduates do well in college, the high school offered 44 classes, and students were enrolled in all 38 state-required classes. (See, Facts are Stubborn Things, Mr. Greenberg for more information.)
So what was the “distress?”
Paron ran afoul of the 38-course rule, but not until a few days before the State Board hearing on the fate of the school. That’s when the State Department of Education, which has an avowedly pro-consolidation stance and provides hefty financial incentives to districts for consolidation (a position not noted in news coverage), pulled the certification “waiver” of the journalism teacher at Paron. Mind you, the journalism teacher was fully certified in English, Speech, and Drama and had a master’s degree and the credentials to teach Advanced Placement English—just not full certification in journalism. Note also that journalism is not one of the subjects in which the teacher is required to be certified/Highly Qualified by the federal No Child Left Behind law. And, note as well that waivers are commonly granted to teachers who are in the process of adding additional subject certifications to their teaching licenses.
Nevertheless, the journalism teacher’s “waiver” was suddenly revoked and Paron High was placed on academic “distress” because journalism is one of the 38 required classes. It’s also worth pointing out at this point that Arkansas requires that every high school enroll students in the 38 specific classes every year. Alternative or advanced placement versions of the classes cannot be counted among the 38. Schools that don’t enroll students in all the 38 required classes are placed in “academic distress” and can be forced to close regardless of how well students are actually performing.
The inconvenient facts of Paron’s academic situation were left out of coverage.
Instead, much of the media repeated, wrongly, that Paron could “not even offer the minimum 38 classes.” Some reports regularly compared Paron’s alleged inability to offer 38 classes to Bryant’s offering of 150 classes. But those reports didn’t reveal what the Bryant classes are or how many students participate in them. Nor did they point out that a higher percentage of students at Bryant scored below Basic on state tests, a point that might have raised questions about what the wide choice of classes at Bryant is doing for those vulnerable young people.
Not only did the press misrepresent Paron’s academic record, it failed to provide any information about the larger issues of achievement and curriculum and school size that would help frame a responsible debate. There was no mention of the extensive body of research that indicates that students in smaller schools perform better academically on average than similar students in larger schools and that the impact of school size is especially strong for low-income students.
There was no mention of the unresolved national discussion over whether a broad curriculum that accommodates students’ idiosyncratic interests is better than a narrowly focused curriculum that builds all students’ core knowledge and skill.
There was some mention of alterative ways to offer curriculum. One editorial disparaged a Spanish class offered at Paron through interactive distance learning as “broadcast Spanish.” But there was no serious exploration of delivery systems—like interactive distance learning—that enable small rural schools to offer additional classes and enable states to protect students from the kind of lengthy daily bus rides that would make most adults too tired to perform rigorous mental work.
Length of Bus Ride. Academic facts weren’t the only facts that were left out or misrepresented in most of the coverage of Paron. One of the chief concerns of Paron supporters was the length of time students would have to ride a bus if the high school were closed. Parents didn’t want to subject their children to a four hour—yes, that’s right, four hour—daily bus ride …on 30-miles of winding two-lane road that connect Paron and Bryant. Parents were concerned that 20 hours a week on a bus wouldn’t be good for their kids, that it would steal time for homework and school activities and reduce the quality of family life. They didn’t like that Bryant had no plans to run late buses for Paron students who wished to stay after school for extracurricular activities.
But the reality and consequences of a daily four-hour bus ride were largely ignored in the media. Instead, there were moralistic recommendations that if Paron parents really cared about their kids they would arrange carpools to take their kids to school and activities.
Did any media outlets do the math on that recommendation? If they had they would have been forced to report that a 60 mile round trip in a van (remember they’re supposed to carpool) would cost a family upwards of $50 a week, a “consolidation tax” if you will on working rural families. And a van can only transport a small fraction of Paron’s students.
The press parroted the state and district’s assertion that the larger school will offer Paron students more classes and activities. But it didn’t mention the obvious fact that four hours of bus time each day will limit the ability of Paron kids to take the most challenging of Bryant’s classes and that without transportation students can’t participate in after-school activities. There was virtually no coverage given to the multiple ways in which distance bars student access to educational programs and opportunity.
By failing to expose the educational inequities forced on rural students by the removal of schools from their communities, the press effectively endorses those inequities.
Right to Participate in Decisions. One of the most important responsibilities of a free press is to stand guard over the processes of democracy by exposing the ways in which those processes are thwarted. One of those processes—the means by which all parties are able to exercise their rights to participate in and be heard in public hearings and public policy decisions affecting them—is fundamental.
Most states have some process, at least nominally, which enables rural residents to participate in decisions affecting their public school. A responsible press has an obligation to report the extent to which these processes are indeed open and not predetermined, the extent to which they strengthen or undermine democratic participation in public policy making and implementation.
One of Paron’s complaints was that it was not allowed to present or question witnesses in the hearing on whether the high school would remain open in the community. But the Arkansas press was mute in the face of this complaint and reneged its own power as a keeper of democratic process and participation. There weren’t even questions raised about how decisions to close schools and impose long-distance bussing on rural students are made and what that decision-making process means for the rights of parents and communities in terms of their own children.
When it all boils down in Arkansas, as in most states, the debate over rural education is fundamentally a debate over whether rural communities can have schools and whether rural residents will be allowed into the public school governance process in meaningful ways. It’s at root a debate over whether public education has any relation to democracy in rural places.
The failure of the press to frame the issue of school location and governance within the context of larger democratic processes and values is significant far beyond the small communities whose children are forced to migrate out every day just to go to school.
Failure to Investigate
Omitting facts is sometimes a willful effort to exclude information that doesn’t suit a particular point of view; sometimes it’s a result of failure to investigate. So perhaps it’s splitting hairs to distinguish the two here. But the allegation of “fiscal distress” at Paron High is one that simply goes begging an awful lot of questions.
Bryant School District alleged fiscal distress at Paron based on a projected deficit of $234,000. The media repeated the language of fiscal problems at Paron. But they didn’t investigate. Even basic questions like what the numbers were based on were not raised. Nor were other fundamental questions such as: How specifically will closing Paron High school reduce costs to the district? What additional costs will the district incur by transporting the high school students to Bryant? Will the costs of operating an elementary school in Paron be significantly less than operating both an elementary and a high school in the community? What will the transfer of Paron students to other districts cost Bryant? Is the budgeting process at Bryant transparent?
There were not questions about what the research says on the fiscal impact of consolidation (no real savings in most cases). No questions about how consolidation decisions are reached. No question on curriculum. No questions on bus rides. No questions on student performance. No questions about much of anything.
Name-Calling, Cultural Slurring, and Feigned Concern
The failures of the Arkansas press in reporting the news on Paron were made all the more galling by the editorial board at the state’s daily paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which framed cultural denigration and personal vitriol as legitimate perspective in its editorials on the matter.
The most obviously pathetic of the paper’s attempts to rain down contempt on supporters of small schools and Paron in particular was its pattern of calling people names. Supporters of Paron were labeled “paronistas,” an apparent reference to the Nicaraguan party that held power in that country in the 1980s. Rural Arkansans were referred to as “Arkies.” The court case was referred to as “Paron High School vs. Academic Standards, Common Sense and Accountability.” Supporters of Paron were accused of breaking the “damfool” rule. Plaintiffs—Paron residents seeking enforcement of democratic rights and trying to shield their children from four hour bus rides—were alluded to as “litigious.” (We have to ask, would they have been negligent if they hadn’t tried to intervene on behalf of their children?) Even politicians and public figures who questioned the value of closing rural schools were accused of “pandering” to rural interests and perpetuating “ignorance” among rural people.
One tactic used by a biased and dogmatic regime to strip basic rights and opportunities from entire groups of people, including children, is to denigrate the culture and communities of those people. A convenient flip side to this tactic is feigned concern—especially for the children. The Democrat-Gazette did both. It cloaked its destructive and hateful positions on rural schools and rural people in a mantle of pretend-care for the 110 displaced students of Paron. So-robed, the writers self-righteously pronounced illegitimate solutions to made-up problems, implying in the process that adults in Paron were both negligent and stupid.
Had the paper had the guts to report the facts: that closing Paron High forces inhumane bus rides on 11-year olds, disrupts families, and reduces the real (not paper) educational opportunities for those kids, it would not have needed to put up a front of concern. But it could not have advocated closing the school either.
Instead, the paper mischaracterized the school as failing and ridiculed the hundreds of adults in Paron—and by extension the thousands of adults all over rural Arkansas—fighting for the well-being of their children, fighting to stay involved in their kids’ lives and their educations. The editorial staff’s fake concern was a dirty trick to re-appropriate the legitimate concern of rural parents as its own dishonest shield from real responsibility.
For some of its editorials, the paper adopted an aw-shucks, pseudo-colloquial style that made a mockery of rural (rural southern, in particular) ways of speaking. Perhaps to disguise the denigration, one editorial made a point to mention how smart the writers found rural people in Arkansas to be. “We know these folks are no dummies,” it asserted and went on to opine about brighter stars away from city lights and healthy tomato plants (suggesting that’s about the sum of rural life). Then the editorial staff poses the question, “So if rural folks aren’t dumb, why treat them that way?”
Good question.
And, what’s the editorial board’s answer? It would seem that its answer is to treat the entire Arkansas public as if it is “dumb” by peddling false information, bullying legitimately concerned and involved citizens, and abdicating responsibility for fact, thought, and the role of the press. The question doesn’t hide anything, however: the editorial board asserts in multiple ways its own view that rural people aren’t smart enough to know what’s good for their children, that they should be denied any say over the schooling of children who live in rural areas, and that children should be removed from rural communities to be educated. It's a fundamental cynicism, not just about rural people, but about democracy itself.
So there you have it: the reason what happened in Paron matters everywhere.
One small Arkansas community managed to expose an awful lot about honesty in reporting, about cultural respect, about good education for rural kids, and about the basic political underpinnings of our country. Let’s hope that lots of reporters and editorialists are interested in learning. We’d sure welcome some learning in Arkansas.
Check out What Really Happened in Paron, Arkansas for a summary of events and Facts are Stubborn Things, Mr. Greenberg and Paron and the Propagandist for more perspective on the Democrat-Gazette’s editorials on Paron.