The Arkansas State Board of Education planned to restore local control to schools in the whitest part of Little Rock, but the community rose up in opposition and demanded the restoration of the entire district, one Little Rock.
Massive crowds gathered to raise their voices in protest and the state board folded.
THE ARKANSAS STATE Board of Education abandoned its previously adopted plan to relinquish only partial control of Little Rock School District after widespread pushback by thousands of teachers, parents, students and community activists who argued it would have catapulted the city into another era of segregated schools.
Instead, the board voted unanimously Thursday to return control of the entire school district to a locally elected school board under a yet-to-be-agreed-upon memorandum of understanding with the state that will include some continued monitoring of the city’s poorest performing schools.
The decision, prompted by a surprise motion to scrap the previous plan, shocked many gathered at a meeting to protest it who were expecting to face stiff opposition by the governor-appointed board.
Cathy Frye, who has been writing about her experiences inside the shadowy world of school choice in Arkansas, says that the battle is won, but the war is not.
She says the decision was a tactical retreat by the Waltons. They won’t give up. They want the property.
She writes:
The Arkansas State Board of Education, during what appeared to be a meticulously staged meeting, voted Thursday to return the Little Rock School District to local control.
This about-face occurred because state leaders and board members feared further public shaming and opted instead for an awkward retreat.
Stakeholders celebrated the vote, only to get a clapback from the state board when it next voted to oust the Little Rock Education Association. (As we all know, Governor Asa Hutchinson and his GOP underlings loathe unions.)
Remember, the Waltons have invested millions in organizations that lobby specifically for the Arkansas school -“choice” movement. Despite today’s vote to reinstate local control, the Walton Family Foundation will persist in its efforts to dismantle LRSD and other districts that might appeal to charter-school leaders and the private-school crowd.
Again, they don’t just want your students and the funding that follows them. They want your facilities. (More on that below.)
Right now, given public sentiment, the Waltons will let things quiet down. But you can bet that the various nonprofits that they fund already are stepping up their behind-the-scenes efforts to get their projects back on track.
It is imperative that the various grassroots organizations involved in fending off the Waltons’ school grabs remain intersectional and vigorous in their efforts to protect their districts, teachers, students, and, again, their buildings. You have won a battle. Not the war.
She offers some concrete advice for the Resistance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s up at OPED https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Arkansas-State-Board-Vote-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_GrassRoots_Local-Politics_Walton-191011-427.html#comment747092
with comment
If you want the truth–the latest facts about what has been happening, happening as the local public schools are being destroyed, here is the latest book, from my friend, Diane! (Yeah… I know this extraordinary woman for 2 decades now.)
In Slaying Goliath, Diane writes “of those who have privatized the schools, the Disrupters, who believe America’s schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized with threats and bonuses, and schools that need to enter into the age of the gig economy in which children are treated like customers or products. She writes of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many more, on the right and the left, as well as corporations, foundations, etc., intent on promoting the privatization of one of our most valued public institutions.” https://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Goliath-Impassioned-Privatization-Movement/dp/0525655379/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=slaying+goliath&qid=1558983869&s=gateway&sr=8-4
Ravitch lays out, in extensive detail, the facts showing that the ideas put forth by school privateers have failed; that their promises of higher test scores have not come to pass; that the “great hope” of Common Core has been a dud.”
“Arrayed against these forces, Ravitch writes of the volunteer army–“the Resisters”–that has sprung up from Seattle, Texas, and Colorado, to Detroit, New Orleans, and Buffalo, New York–parents, teachers, grandparents, students, bloggers, religious leaders, brave individuals, who, spurred on by conviction, courage, determination, and the power of ideas and passion, are fighting back to successfully keep alive their public schools.”
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Is there a movement that unifies the protests of teachers and parents in Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisiana and perhaps other Southern states?
Their problems seem very similar: Their states’ conservative governments think they are given a mandate by the people to privatize. They appoint charter school friendly state and local board of educations, pass voucher bills, and they even take over state universities with these appointed boards.
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