State Senator, and friend of UNO Democrats, Gwen Howard has proposed a compromise plan on the Omaha school dispute:

The Howard plan adopts several ideas from Sen. Ron Raikes, committee chairman and author of last year’s learning community law:

- School districts would cooperate under a formal governance structure called a learning community.

- That overarching entity would be run by board members publicly elected from voting districts. Howard proposes 12 board members from six proportional districts, with each election district containing parts of at least two school districts.

- The learning community would merge functions with two existing metro-area Educational Service Units.

- A common tax base would fund local schools.

Howard’s proposal also takes ideas from the superintendents:

- The OPS breakup would be repealed.

- School districts would use current state laws about cooperative ventures to create an integration program.

- Two advisory boards - one for superintendents and one focused on student achievement - would be created.

The seemingly universal agreement among the legislature is that the OPS breakup needs to be repealed. It was a recklessly irresponsible action by the unicameral to vote for Chambers’ amendment - a knee-jerk response to “stick it to” Omaha. (Howard, to her credit, was one of the few senators to vote against both the amendment and the bill). It was signed into law by Dave Heineman, a cowardly decision that unfortunately was not remedied by the voters in May or November. LB 1024 predictably invited legal action, and it was that legal action that precipitated the current need for compromise.

The superintendents’ plan has been “status quo.” They want to repeal the OPS breakup, and operate within the structure of the “learning community.” But without a shared tax-base, and with no real teeth to the integration policy, the learning community would not have any real effect on the current disparity between OPS schools and other Omaha-area schools. Though race plays a large part in this dispute, it is economics that drives the conversation. And for the sake of compromise, some of these superintendents are going to have to swallow their pride and “share the wealth,” so to speak.

I don’t know if there is an easy solution to this issue, but it’s an issue that must be dealt with. The longer this drags out, the more it hurts Omaha’s schools. LB 1024 was an embarrassing episode for this state and this community. Whether this legislature repeats the mistakes of the past, or resolves the dispute, will go a long way toward determining its legacy.

Related Posts:

One City. Three Districts. One Constitutional Mess. (4/19/2006).