Back to crisis in Little Rock

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, another one is fast developing here. Last week it even made Page One of the New York Times, and it wasn't pleasant reading:

"Fifty years after the epic desegregation struggle at Central High School, the school district here is still riven by racial conflict, casting a pall on this year's ambitious commemorative efforts.

"In the latest clash, white parents pack school board meetings to support the embattled superintendent, Roy Brooks, who is black. The blacks among the school board members look on grimly, determined to use their new majority to oust him."

So much for the chances of a fair and impartial hearing for Mr. Brooks, the hard-driving school superintendent who came here three years ago with the avowed aim of making this the best-performing urban school district in the country. So he has been slicing away at a bloated bureaucracy, sifting resources to the classroom, trying to raise academic standards and in general educating kids instead of just going through the same old motions.

All that has shaken up the dead wood and stirred up those who miss the status mediocre quo, notably the teachers' unions.

When the union-backed members of the school board became a 4-3 majority after last fall's elections, it was only a matter of time before Mr. Brooks would have to fight for his job. Because when a man comes to town with a dream, it doesn't take long for the killers of the dream to appear, too.

This isn't really a fight over race but over power. It's a fight over what education ought to be about: learning or political patronage.

By now it's evident even to a New York Times reporter who is just passing through town that the four-member majority of the school board, aka the Gang of Four, are determined to oust this school superintendent. He has been entirely too interested in improving education. And his critics were determined to restore the shoddy old order they were comfortable with. But his right to a fair and impartial hearing before being suspended got in the way.

One result is that Little Rock's school district, which finally got out of court after a half-century of litigation over school integration, is now back in. Claiming the board was denying him due process of law, Mr. Brooks got the hearing called to suspend him suspended itself. At least for a few more days.