Dr. Anika T. Whitfield is a minister in Little Rock who speaks out against the steady encroachment of privatization. She recently wrote this letter to the State Commissioner of Education Johnny Key and Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore. The district was taken over by the state because six of its 48 schools had low test scores. The State Commissioner Johnny Key is an engineer and a former legislator; among his notable positions: he voted to reduce unemployment compensation benefits, he opposed abortion, he voted to allow handguns on church property and to allow university staff to carry concealed weapons and to forbid the release of information about the holders of concealed weapons permits. He was appointed Commissioner of Education in 2015.

Dr. Whitfield writes:


Mr. Poore and Mr. Key,

There is great community concern about your recent announcement about more plans for school closures within our beloved LRSD.

No genuine, earnest efforts have been made on your behalf to engage the largest and most invested stakeholders in the LRSD: students, parents/guardians, in developing plans together before you have already developed plans and made impactful decisions of your own. And, to add insult to injury, you continue to deny students, parents and guardians the a viable opportunity to provide their wisdom and insight with you, and other LRSD administrators. Their wisdom and insight should be considered invaluable to you as the Little Rock School District Superintendent and appointed LRSD Board member and chair.

Your latest press conference, Mr. Poore, was another indication of your lack of respect for the true value of building healthy community relationships through direct open lines of communications, frequent meaningful experiences, and transparency. Your approaches lack all and most importantly, trust.

Mr. Poore, it is not acceptable that you, someone who has shown a personal lack of commitment to the well being and welfare of our city and county by choosing to not become a registered voter in the over two years with which you have resided in our community, continue to make decisions without making sincere efforts to work with the LRSD community that was unwillfully disenfranchised. Willfully exercising absolute power and authority over persons who have been wrongfully denied their rights to voice their vote is not mark of excellence in leadership, nor a sign of strength. It is an indication of fear and weakness.

Mr. Key, both you and Mr. Poore have continued to deny students, parents, guardians and the greater LRSD community the opportunity to make decisions about our children, our schools, and our community without just cause. We understand that the AR State Legislators empowered the State Board of Education to assume control over public school systems based on criteria that have become lawful. And, we are clear that the State Board of Education, prior to your appointment, decided to take over our entire district (48 schools), rather than voting to assist the six schools that were designated as being in academic distress instead.

We know that Governor Asa Hutchinson has been following the playbook of the charter school funders who have used similar tactics to take over public school systems by appointing persons who like you, Mr. Key, who have no certification nor experience as an educator nor as an academic administrator, to become Commissioner of Education.

What remains unclear is why you both have chosen this fate?

Why are you both willing to evoke violence against the most vulnerable children and families in our city? Why have you chosen to come to the largest city in our state with the largest population of students in a public school system who are African American and work to destroy their hopes, dreams, and aspirations along with their families by going along with a slow, but steady plan to destroy the Little Rock School District.

Where is your moral consciousness? Where is your moral character? Why are you choosing to aid in assassinating the hopes, dreams, and potentials of innocent children and their families?

It is beyond understanding how you could/would endeavor to work so diligently to destroy the LRSD community, one of the cornerstones of the city of Little Rock.

We are not unaware nor are we complacent. Systemic racism and poverty are alive and unwell in America, and right here in the city of Little Rock. We are working on both the cure and the sustainability plan of wellness to prevent the recurrence of these man-made epidemics.

This letter is an appeal to whatever remaining hope of justice lies within you. We ask that you release the LRSD community from bondage and free yourselves from bloodying your hands anymore.

Rev./Dr. Anika T. Whitfield