Back to crisis in Little Rock

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.

A meticulous federal judge, the Hon. G. Thomas Eisele, now has warned the president of the school board that any hearings to suspend and/or fire Mr. Brooks had better be fair and impartial, not “simply a sham and pretense and therefore constitutionally invalid.”

It took years, decades, for Little Rock and Arkansas to get over Orval Faubus’ historic ‘57 crisis. How long will it take to get over this fast-developing crisis of ‘07? Who knows? It’s already under way and may be out of control.

You would think this would be the perfect time for Little Rock to show how far Arkansas’ capital has come since ‘57. But instead of a history lesson, we’re offering a kind of historical re-enactment. As if we’d learned nothing in a half-century.

There’s still time, if not much, to call off this whole, unnecessary show. There’s still time to avoid more disruption, confusion and bad feelings — all of which mount daily. Not to mention legal fees, potential damages, and embarrassing stories on Page One of the New York Times.

Wouldn’t it be something if the city woke up, united, and aimed for a different kind of headline? For example: “Little Rock overcomes its divisions/ School system forges ahead.” Think of all the fussin’ and feudin’ and lawyerin’ we would avoid.

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