Education co-ops concerned about effect of reduced funding

By ANTOINETTE GRAJEDA | Arkansas Advocate

The Sanders administration’s proposal to reduce funding for Arkansas’s 15 education service cooperatives has co-op directors concerned about the impact on students, especially those in smaller school districts.

Fourteen cooperatives would receive $4.3 million less in state funding next fiscal year under the Department of Education’s 2025 budget proposal, according to estimates provided to the Advocate by co-op directors.

Created by Act 349 of 1985, cooperatives support school districts by providing a variety of services, including special education, professional development and technology.

Statewide, more than 50 co-op employees are affected by the education department’s reallocation of funds for content specialists. ADE officials told co-op directors at their monthly meeting on March 5 that next year they’ll only receive funding for 1 math specialist, 1 science specialist and 1 dyslexia/literacy specialist.

During the March 7 Joint Budget Committee meeting, Education Secretary Jacob Oliva said co-ops and districts need to know there’s going to be a deeper conversation on funding positions if there isn’t a return on investment. He said co-ops shouldn’t expect to be guaranteed funding because it’s “not an entitlement appropriation.”

“We’re going to reevaluate how these districts are being supported because the reality is literacy and numeracy data hasn’t been improving in the last decade and we’ve just been giving dollars out the window,” Oliva said. “So we officially let them know, we may not be giving you these dollars the way you’ve always received them. We’re going to reevaluate and make sure we’re having a great impact on what’s best for students.”

Dawson Education Services Cooperative

Dawson Education Services Cooperative director Darin Beckwith echoed Oliva’s comments in an interview with arkadelphian.com.

“The bottom line is that we all have to come together and look at all the solutions to make sure the kids in Arkansas are getting the absolute best education they can to succeed,” Beckwith said in a telephone interview on March 8.

The Arkadelphia-based Dawson serves 22 school districts in five counties: Clark, Pike, Hot Spring, Garland and Saline. The ADE’s proposal reduces the local co-op by two full-time and one part-time position, according to Beckwith.

“The co-op is not closing,” Beckwith said. “That is not the case. We’re going to do everything we can to take care of our employees.

“We’re living in a time of accountability,” he added, “and the Department of Education feels like this will be more efficient while we continue to seek ways to improve academic performance. When all is said and done, we are a branch of the Department of Education, to a degree.”

Dawson employs more than 400 educators in its five-county area. The majority of those positions are grant-funded. In the past year the cooperative has added about 200 positions since districts in its service area have turned to Dawson to oversee their Alternative Learning Environment programs, Beckwith said.

More than 100 Dawson employees work in downtown Arkadelphia, Beckwith said, adding that some 7,500 educators participate in professional development provided by Dawson each summer.

How other co-ops responded

The Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative did not return requests for comment, and ADE did not provide a funding total.

De Queen-Mena Education Service Cooperative director Benny Weston said co-ops are particularly beneficial for smaller districts that may not otherwise have the funds to offer these services.

“The larger districts sometimes have many more people to do these type things with, but the smaller districts do not, and they rely entirely on the co-op for services. And so it will have an impact, but it will depend on what the state does,” Weston said.

The state will take over literacy while co-ops focus on dyslexia. However, there will likely be some literacy involved for smaller co-ops that aren’t large enough to need someone focused on dyslexia 100% of the time. Gifted and Talented (GT) specialists will also shift to state control. Co-ops previously received $30,000 each to support a GT person, but the state will now have five regional specialists.

Northcentral Arkansas Education Service Cooperative director Gerald Cooper said his biggest concern with these changes is the impact on kids. Cooper said he knew at a young age he needed a good education to escape “a situation that bordered on poverty,” and he’s worried about students having that same opportunity.

“I’m really more concerned about what the kids are going to lose rather than what the co-op is going to lose,” he said. “People are going to lose some jobs and that’s bad, but I think the kids and the school districts are the ones that I worry the most about because there’s some in the same shape that I was 60 years ago.”

The co-ops also support charter schools and private schools in addition to traditional public schools, said Karen Kay McMahen, South Central Service Cooperation director. Co-ops are service organizations, and each one provides different services tailored to their district’s needs because “one size doesn’t fit all,” she said.

As cooperatives navigate the shift in funding, some directors have talked to affected employees about applying for jobs remaining at their co-op as well as state jobs, like literacy coaches.

Whatever happens next, Weston said they’re committed to supporting districts.

“We’re going to continue to serve our districts, and we’re going to continue to do everything that we can,” he said. “We’re going to keep our heads up and go forward because we still have lots of employees. We’re going to approach this from a positive standpoint, and we’re going to continue to provide services.”

Student outcomes

Co-op directors said the state’s justification for the funding reduction was that there hadn’t been a big enough impact on student outcomes. Cooper said he was surprised because he hasn’t received complaints from the district he serves, but the situation was not entirely unexpected.

“You could kind of see this coming for some time, especially when they started hiring literacy coaches and putting them around the state, so this is a logical next step,” he said. “So I wasn’t shocked, but I was surprised because of the way things were going with the specialists at the co-ops and the districts being satisfied.”

One of the many provisions of the LEARNS Act, which makes several changes to the state’s education system, is providing literacy coaches for K-3 teachers in “D”-rated or “F”-rated schools.

The coaches are expected to cost $6.2 million annually, according to a fiscal impact statement. Arkansas lawmakers approved $6.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the initiative last May.

The governor has proposed a 1.76% increase to next year’s state budget, with the largest increase going toward education. The proposal includes an increase of about $100 million to support provisions of the LEARNS Act, including a $65 million bump to the state’s private school voucher program and $34 million for other initiatives.

ADE’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education sent $55.2 million in state general revenue to co-ops for a variety of programs last year, spokeswoman Kimberly Mundell said. 

The largest amounts were $20.5 million for the Better Chance programs; $11 million for literacy, math and science specialists; $6 million for operating expenditures; $4 million for distance learning; and $4 million for teacher licensing mentoring. 

Lesser amounts are given for other programs, such as professional development, gifted and talented, special education services and technology grants, she said.

Oliva told lawmakers the funds that were previously used for co-op content specialists will be reallocated to support what they were designed for — literacy, science and math initiatives — but they may not be supported the way that have been historically.

“What’s happening is we’re just giving money to co-ops and those dollars are getting watered down and not being used the way they were designed to be used,” Oliva said. “We’re going to make sure these dollars are being used the intended way of their purpose, and we’re actually going to be elevating the support we give districts, I think, at a much more cohesive manner instead of a fragmented uncoordinated process that we’ve been following.”

Van Buren Republican Sen. Jim Petty said at the meeting that he represents a rural district with smaller schools, which tend to rely on co-op’s services more than larger ones, so he hopes there could be a conversation about where to reallocate the money. 

Oliva said he’s “a big believer in educational co-ops,” and relied on consortiums himself as a Florida superintendent. However, he said small districts must meet the same state and federal requirements a large district does. 

“They need to rely on those co-ops, but the co-ops also need to be effective in the support that they’re providing districts. And I think as we move forward and look at opportunities, how do we help support co-ops, but then also hold them accountable for student performance as well,” he said.

arkadelphian.com’s Joel Phelps contributed to this report.