EDITORIALS : Supreme supervision
Posted on Saturday, December 2, 2006
IT’S LIKE tuning into an episode of
Seinfeld you’ve seen a hundred times.
You know exactly what’s going to happen, right down to the dialogue, body language and special guest appearances. So when this state’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that, no, thank you, we’re not quite done with the Lake View case... well, rewind and hit Play. Cue the usual reactions from the usual suspects: There was the governor—still Mike Huckabee, we think—in his anti-court snit. The Guv-of-the-moment declared the Supremes “out of control” and, for bad measure, added that he was “disgusted” with the ruling. (It seems the court will retain jurisdiction for at least another 180 days, while the state shows, if it can, that it has met the constitutional requirement of an adequate and equitable system of public education. ) Of all the things in this unseemly world to be disgusted with, you’d think Current Guv would find something more worthy of his repugnance than a court’s interest in better education. But as the old lady said when she kissed the cow, there’s no accounting for taste.
There was the state’s attorney general—Mike Beebe for the moment, before he moves on and up—playing the why-didn’tthey-tell-us ? card. The state’s lawyer-inchief can’t understand why the Supremes didn’t oh-so-specifically ask the state to prove it had done enough to save public schools. Why-oh-why didn’t the justices say something ?! Never mind those reams of previous court rulings, demands, warnings and exasperated lectures.
There were various legislators all hangdoggin’ it about how poor-pitiful-them bent over twice-backwards to comply with this court order and here the Supremes still won’t go away. O, woe are them.
And of course there was the Supremes’ own reliable dissenter whenever the court takes a little itty-bitty technicality like public education entirely too seriously. To quote Chief Justice Jim Hannah: “[I ] t appears that the basis of the court’s action is simply that this court has decided that it will not let go until it is satisfied that an adequate school system has been provided by the General Assembly.” How picky can you be ? Just ’cause it’s a constitutional requirement, that’s no reason to make such a big deal out of it.
As in that Seinfeld rerun, we’re tellin’ ya, Jerry we’ve heard all this before—in the first two episodes of Supreme Supervision. Twice before the court reopened the case and appointed special masters. Now it’s doing it again—right down to appointing the same two masters: David Newbern and Bradley Jesson.
We’ve said it before, specifically on June 10, 2005, and we can’t think of any way to say it any better, so we’ll just say it again:
Much as those who object to the Supreme Court’s daring to interpret the law may complain, its decision should not have come as a surprise. When the court looked at this case last year and pronounced the work of its special masters good, it also warned—in small type—that it wasn’t about to lose interest in education, and specifically in enforcing the landmark Lake View decision....
“The resolve of this court is clear: We will not waver in our commitment to the goal of an adequate and substantially equal education for all Arkansas students; nor will we waver from the constitutional requirement that our State is to ‘ever maintain a general, suitable, and efficient system of free public schools....’ Make no mistake, this court will exercise the power and authority of the judiciary at any time to assure that the students of our State will not fall short of the goal set forth by this court. We will assure its attainment.”
But the dissenters from this decision now sound shocked to discover that those words weren’t just meaningless rhetoric. What do you suppose it is about “We will not waver in our commitment” that the dissenters didn’t understand ? End of re-run. Here’s hoping the all-toofamiliar reaction of the Beebes, Huckabees and legislators was just so much obligatory piffle to curry favor with those who’ve never liked raising educational standards anyway. Because it’s hard to believe either Mike I or Mike II are really shocked when the Supremes want to double-check their work. It’s not as if the state hadn’t been warned. Repeatedly.
All the high court asked the state to do is make its case more clearly. After all, there’s been a special session on education and tens of millions of dollars more in state spending since the last time the Supremes called in the special masters. If the state has met all the court’s requirements, what’s the problem ? Unless the Mikes have an inkling the state hasn’t. And in that case, the state needs to clean up its act.
Nobody wants to see the Arkansas Supreme Court turned into a statewide school board. But this court hasn’t shown any great interest in how its requirements are met, only an insistence that they be met.
Does anybody believe Arkansas would have made the progress in public education it has if the Supremes hadn’t kept watch ? Neither do we. Now that the court has again retained jurisdiction over Lake View, you can bet the next session of the General Assembly—which begins next month!—will be aware that it’s being supremely watched when it’s dealing with education.
Good.
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