The battle for Pine Bluff’s students wages on

26Aug09

Some bittersweet news to report: Pine Bluff has lost KIPP Delta’s next public school to Blytheville, home of Senate Education Committee vice-chairman Steve Bryles, who has been a tireless advocate for KIPP and all of Arkansas’s students for at least ten years. We send our sincere thanks to the good Senator for his hard work and congratulations to the city of Blytheville, its FABULOUS new school leader Maisie Wright, and all of its future KIPPsters for the incredible educational adventure they are about to embark upon!

Pine Bluff did not go down without a fight — and the battle is not over yet. Over 150 people of all backgrounds began banding together when the request for proposals was issued just six short weeks ago, recognizing what KIPP has done to help the most disadvantaged students in West Helena and around the nation and what KIPP could do in our hometown. My eternal thanks to all of you who stepped up and shouted “YES!” when it would have been very easy to say “why bother?”

Our coalition still intends to do whatever it takes to make Pine Bluff KIPP’s next expansion site in 2011, and that work begins today. I hope you will all join me and our coalition in continuing this effort for as long as it takes, however much it takes. Pine Bluff’s students have already waited long enough.

We must also do whatever it takes to ensure educational excellence for all of our public schools and students in Pine Bluff and across the Delta. They need not only our financial support but also our time, our listening, our tutoring, our mentoring; they need books and computers, musical instruments and art supplies; they need after-school and summer programs to keep students engaged in learning long after the school doors are closed. There are many simple things that can and must be done by churches, businesses, non-profits, elected officials, colleges, social and professional organizations. It is not impossible to transform a whole community.

Please don’t give up on any of these students. Our future won’t forgive us.

. . .

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

—Margaret Mead

. . .

A happy ending for two of my Pine Bluff High School classmates:

“Torii Hunter’s Personal Miracle: A Tough Childhood, a Father’s Confession and a Secret Brother Who Went to West Point” — The Wall Street Journal (with video), 8/26/09

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Tags: Arkansas, education, kids, KIPP