Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

And hello again, everyone, and thanks as always, very much for being with us.

It is legislation of enormous significance to farmers everywhere, and the senior US Senator from Arkansas is helping draft the latest version.

It's the farm bill, and we'll speak with Senator John Bozeman in Washington in just a few moments.

But first, what the new governor describes as the most significant restructuring.

Public education since well, since her father was governor.

But it's not only public education that's involved, although that has public educators at every level watching very closely.

The details are still to come, perhaps in the weeks to come, but for the moment, the broad outlines of the Sanders reforms are suggesting that negotiations are still underway among the stakeholders, teachers, administrators, legislators.

Already in place as Miss Sanders, Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva, who spoke at the Capitol with our Michael Hablan, Education Secretary Jacob Alifa, thanks very much for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

First, where are we in the process of this legislation being introduced?

I know you've been working with lawmakers in the process of crafting this.

So if you look at kind of the vision that Governor Sanders set forth for improving education.

In the state of Arkansas, it was really built around the learned platform, the literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, networking and security platform.

That blueprint is turning into policy and each day we're working with the bill sponsors, working with the legislatures to codify that vision into actionable steps for policy to go through the legislative process.

I can assure you we've been meeting with with legislators and stakeholders and receiving feedback from all over the state.

Stationary single day and in a very optimistic that it's going to be in a final form here pretty soon.

And talk about the process as you've been working with lawmakers, how have y'all been approaching how to prepare this?

Well, it starts with division.

So we're really excited that Governor Sanders gave us a clear vision of what is that platform we want to see turn into actionable steps.

When you go through the process, you work with the legislative delegation, you have committee chairs and there's different education committees both in the House and the Senate.

Side and then you have Bill sponsors that are sponsoring that language as as the the Governor has toured the state as the legislatures have gone back to their communities and the bill sponsors take feedback from stakeholders.

We want to make sure that everyone's voice is included all the way from the parents to students to the teachers, principals, superintendents, the business community and anybody that is is vested in making sure education is right.

We want to hear from them.

So that process.

And sometimes take a little bit longer than anticipated because we're constantly getting feedback and we'll want to make sure that that feedback is thoroughly vetted.

As as we're getting language to final form, it's the bill sponsors and the committees working together and then getting the language is one side of it.

Then you also gotta make sure the budget side aligns too.

And when you're looking at balancing estate, a statewide budget while hoping to reduce the tax burden on the state, we got to make sure it gets done right and that it's able to be implemented sustainable.

And do you think we could see this introduced in one of the education committees as early as next week?

That would be great.

We would love to get this vision in final form or or close to final form.

I don't know if you're ever fully finished till it goes through to to be voted on by the members and sign into law.

But at least to get some of those details and some of the nuances and language out to the public so that they can see what some of the ideas and proposals are.

And then the bill sponsors, the committees will be able to continue to receive feedback and if they need to make amendments to the language, we'll go through that process.

So I'm, I'm very optimistic.

We can get that out into the public by next week and start moving through this.

And a key item in this is to raise teacher salaries, base minimum salary at $50,000.

One criticism I've heard is that it doesn't offer incentives for teachers to get graduate degrees to masters degrees.

As we start to go through some of the details, what's your response to that?

So there's no greater impact on student learning and watching students achieve.

And move to the educational continuum.

Then the teacher that's standing in front of those students each and every single day.

The research on that is very clear.

O wanting to invest in recruiting, retaining and recognizing high quality teachers that we know will have an impact on student learning is a priority of this bill.

With that we know we can do better with teacher salaries.

We we want to see the number of people going to school to become a teacher or finding an alternative pathway to the classroom and go up to address teacher shortage issues, getting the base salary.

To $50,000 a teacher across the entire state will take will make huge dividends in achieving that goal of recruiting and retaining high quality talent.

Right now the state of Arkansas average starting teacher salary statewide is about 44th in the nation.

This would move us to the top five we we have heard concerns about while we are we're raising the base.

I'm I'm in a small rural community.

Our budgets are already tight we we may not have enough money to do this this this.

They put the the school district in in financial distress in in as the budget and nuances are getting worked out with the legislature.

I think it's important to note that the foundation funding that school districts historically received they they they get a per student allocation.

They they that is the funding that they build their budgets on and build their staffing on that foundation funding is is being presented to stay intact and in place and not impacted by this the additional cost there's going to be an additional request for the legislature.

To go above and beyond that, foundation funding to fund and invest in teacher education pay.

So school districts will have local dollars with the flexibility to work at the local level with their school district to design a plan that works best for them.

This is empowering a local decision making and if they want to develop a salary schedule that takes into consideration advanced degrees or years of experience, they have the full flexibility and autonomy to do so.

You mentioned the challenges financially that a lot of districts.

Are facing and there are concerns that public money going to private schools or parochial schools could cause some districts to have to consolidate some or some schools to close.

So when you talking about choice opportunities for families and students, really that's the E of empowerment in the learns initiatives and if there's anything that we've learned in education is that A1 size fits all approach doesn't work for all students and all families.

And first and foremost, this package is about investing and improving public education.

I'm a product of public schools.

I worked in public education for over 20 years.

My children attend public schools.

We want the neighborhood zip code school to be the number one and best choice for families and students.

The reality is, is if that school is not able to meet that students and families needs, then parents should be afforded options.

And when you look at the scholarship programs or it's the the Arkansas Freedom Fund accounts that parents.

To be able to set up, nobody's forcing parents to be a part of this program, nor are they facing forcing schools to participate in this program.

But we're hoping they do.

And it creates those opportunities because at the end of the day, we want to see students succeed and succeed in environment while they'll be successful.

If I'm in a school district, that's worried that half of my students are going to look for other options and I think we need to have a deeper conversation of why so many parents are looking for other opportunities and the rhetoric on this.

As Britain's been pretty heated for parents who might not actually understand how this would impact them, what their options are, how would you advise parents to look into this and try to make sense of what's going to be debated here?

Well, the first question I'd ask the parent is are you happy with what your children are learning?

Are are your kids doing successful in school?

Are they getting able to participate in extracurricular and Co curricular activities?

Are they?

Put into a network of care that they know that the adults are doing what they can to help their children learn and thrive.

And if the answer to that is yes, then keep their students in that environment and keep them in that continuum.

And that's what we want.

That's what we hope and we hope that that's happening.

If if a parent is is not happy with the education that they're receiving, then I would say the first step is they need to meet with their school teacher.

They need to meet with their school counselor, their local school principal, and talk about what those concerns are.

Most of the times when people aren't happy with something that's happening in the classroom, getting that resolved at the lowest level at the classroom level will typically be able to resolve and make all those whatever obstacles and challenges that child's face go away and and keep students in a positive continuing learning environment if they're still not able to make those.

Concerns be addressed in a comfort level that's good for the student or parent.

Like, let's say you have a child who's continually getting bullied and they're trying to work with the school and the bullying doesn't seem to stop and it keeps getting worse that parents going to get frustrated and want to make sure their children feel safe.

We want to create other opportunities.

If they're able to go to a school, a private school or a charter school or a virtual school or there.

There's a myriad of options available to families.

They need to figure out which one of those options might be the best for their child.

And then.

Work at the local district level to see how they can put their child in a path.

OK well, we'll see how this plays out here in the coming weeks.

Education Secretary Jacob Aleva, thanks so much for joining me.

My pleasure.

Come back anytime.

I'm Michael helpline.

This is Arkansas week.

Education Secretary Alleva with our Michael Hublin at the Capitol and we'll be right back.

And we are back in terms of the calendar, the political calendar, the governmental calendar.

It's one of those far reaching pieces of legislation that any Congress will consider, its terms and policies and payments crafted to endure for 1/2 decade if not longer.

It's the farm bill, though it involves far more than agriculture, farming and ranching, sure, but services that heavily impact urban America, such as nutrition programs?

At the table as the latest farm bill is drafted since the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

And Senator John Bozeman joins us now from Washington, DC Senator, as always, thanks for coming aboard.

Well, thank you, Steve, so much for having me.

As always, let me congratulate you on the.

40th anniversary of Arkansas Weekly.

We're very proud of you.

That's got to be one of the longest starving shows of its type and you do a tremendous job.

We appreciate you.

Well it's it's it's always the new Sir and the issues not the moderator but anyway I I well I thank you for that this bill the current farm bill expires what at the end of September I believe or in September.

So you've you're fighting a deadline.

And fighting May 1st of all is fighting the right word to use because you've got a lot of competition for your attention.

Well, the good news is, is that almost most members in Congress realize how important this is.

And it's interesting, Steve, Farm bills aren't Republican things or Democrat things.

This is all about rural America.

It has to do with regions of the country.

Southern agriculture is very different than the Great Plains, the eyes, Illinois, Iowa, places like that.

And then the different commodities.

Rice is different than cotton.

Cotton.

There's different than corn.

So you have to take and and mold all of that together and you come up with the farm bill you mentioned earlier, you know it's not just crops and things like that but it's about making it such.

That we do provide the the very important nutrition programs and so it's just it's there's a lot to it.

But it's so so very important.

It's all about rural America.

Well but but it's but it's not entirely about rural America though senator by India.

No, no, no something like 70% seventy 75% is, is is Nutrition Assistance and that impacts very heavily in urban America.

And Arkansas it's more like 84%.

You know, most of the farm bill is all about nutrition.

On the other hand, the farmer aspect of it, we've got the safest, cheapest food supply of any nation in the world.

What this does is allow our farmers.

To be able to go to the bank, borrow the money that they need so they can continue on, and so putting the safety Nets in place.

In Arkansas, agriculture is about 25% of our economy.

But when you get outside of any, any town of any size, it's more like 85 or 90%.

We've lost our manufacturing.

And the other problem that we've got in rural America is that we're losing population.

Of our 75 counties, probably 5253 of lost population, you start losing those turnback dollars.

So there's a lot in the agriculture bill that that helps those communities.

So it's all about helping farmers, the farm economy, helping rural America and then as you mentioned, very importantly the nutrition problems.

Not nutrition problems and nutrition programs that are so very important.

Food assistance.

Yes, Sir.

The the.

The opposition as you as you notice there is rarely partisan or or the OR the the disputes are rarely partisan but geographic and and over other matters this this season though there is there seems to be considerable opposition and on on both sides although I'm based on my reading it seems to be on the Republican aisle in in both chambers.

The farm bill is simply too expensive in a time of skyrocketing deficits and and and debt your response.

Well, I don't.

I don't think that it's it's too expensive.

We need to to spend what we need to spend.

The problem is, when we look at the trajectory, the trajectory is so.

Straight up, it's, it's it's like this.

I mean it's just straight up.

So we started out the base of the 2018 farm bill was about.

860 seven $68 billion.

That has a ballooned to $1.5 trillion as we measure what we're actually spending right now.

So because of that, we can't sustain that forever.

So we need to look.

Republicans and Democrats look together to see how we can.

You know make it such that this thing you know will can will be able to continue on but we can't have it continue on at that trajectory.

Part of that well part of that Steve is you know it's it's difficult because the pandemic spending is caught up in this and you know all of those kind of things those are programs that were one time programs are supposed to be one time programs until we get back to normal those are those are ending but again the trajectory is very, very steep.

And so we've got to work together to figure out a path forward so that we have a sustainable farm bill.

Well, there are also, here's another factor, senator.

There are calls again on both sides, but I've, I've mostly, I think from the democratic side that this farm bill needs to be more green than any of its predecessors, that conservation and and climate change need to be profound considerations when this, when the final version comes to the floor.

Now, is that going to be an impediment, a political impediment?

No, because the reality, Steve, is when you, when you do the things that are right, when you use the proper amount of fertilizer as opposed to using too much, the proper amount of herbicides, insecticides.

That's good for the farmers.

Bottom line, they they really want to do what's right.

For a couple of reasons, I could say they, they want to protect the environment very, very much so.

But also, you know, you use too much, that's an added cost.

And so the good news is, is that the, the farmer of the day, their inputs have gone, have really leveled out with their production going.

You know, skyrocketing, that's a good thing.

So those things we can work through and and it's all about making farmers as productive as we can make them.

And I think there'll be an agreement.

We again that's something that we can work out well among all amid all the considerations regarding the fiscal impact of the bill.

You have a debt vote coming.

The Washington has a debt vote coming up fairly soon the subject of enormous controversy.

Can you give us an update?

From where the gentleman from Arkansas stands.

Well, I think it, I think it.

I don't know that it's an enormous controversy yet, what we're trying to do.

The house is trying to work with the president to come up with a plan.

And so both of them, you know, President Biden needs to come up with a plan.

The House, the Senate, on the Republican side, they need to come up with a plan and see what we can do.

Steve, we're $30 trillion in debt.

The we have increased interest rates dramatically.

All of us know that the Federal Reserve is talking about continuing to ensure continuing to increase interest rates.

About 1/4 of a percent every six or seven weeks for the foreseeable future.

When you increase interest rates 1%, that's $300 billion a year that we have to do to service the debt.

So these are things that, you know, it's these are just basic truths.

We've got to get a handle on this.

The question is how do you do it?

And that's where the argument will be is it's not about, you know, what do you cut and this and that.

It's it's about, you know, trying to make programs where they work for people, getting rid of the programs that don't work and trying to get some agreement so that we can get this thing under control.

Senator, as always, you're generous with your time.

We thank you very much for it.

Will you come back?

Again, soon farm bills a big item.

Well, I I look forward to being with you next time.

It'll be in person.

I want to sit and I'm going to steal my mug when I go away.

Alright.

Thank thank you, Senator, again for being with us.

Thank you.

And we'll be right back.

Well, as Mr. Bozeman noted a bit earlier, and surely you've heard already with this edition, Arkansas Week begins its 40th year, 4 decades we've been around now 4 decades that have seen us cover six elected Arkansas governors, seven US senators from Arkansas, the 18 men and women and all who have set for our four congressional districts over the past 40 years.

And during that time as well, more other state, county and local officials than we can count.

If it affected Arkansas, we covered it at this table or its earlier versions.

Most of the state's best journalists have appeared, and a few of them have shared their Arkansas weak memories.

This is Arkansas week, Arkansas's only statewide in-depth news analysis program, so we've been around through celebrations and scandals and the workaday business of government for four decades.

The important reporting.

The reporting about social events, cultural events, economics and politics.

Were being handled by all print outlets.

I thought it would be helpful to have a weekly coalescing broadcast so that the viewer had a place she or he could go weekly and get the broad perspective.

To give credit where credit is due, you've got to turn to the man, Bill Clinton, and say that he is masterful at cultivating individual reporters.

He's been doing it for years.

During the Clinton's first term, all of these big.

National stories were at their heart.

Arkansas Stories, Arkansas Whitewater, that's an Arkansas story.

That was an Arkansas land deal.

Hello again, everybody.

Welcome back to Arkansas week, another week in which there has been no verdict in the Whitewater trial.

I think we're at week 12 now, but maybe we can work that out in the next few minutes.

And so stories that were dominating the national news and that you would see talked about on Washington week would of course be talked about on Arkansas Week because at their heart.

Again, they were Arkansas stories.

It's already this jury has taken a lot longer to deliberate than the defense took to present its case.

When I came to the program, it was a panel of three or four journalists, Arkansas journalists, who were hands on in terms of politics and public policy.

You stay, Governor Tucker was told to July 15th.

Make all the appointments you want to, hand out all the grants you want to, and then you move on and we will accept.

That, and when there's an informal settlement was broken when Tucker changed his mind.

That is when all the legal doubts suddenly sprang up again and one of the attorney general was able to file suit.

For me, it was always a good way to to learn from, from the experts what was happening in the world of politics in a way that was, you know, more conversational and more.

Analytical than just reading news stories.

And when it was discovered that one of his yes votes had left the chambers and he had sent the police after them.

Oh, it's all very exciting.

Over the decades we have had so many of Arkansas's best, and I would say all of Arkansas's best and brightest journalists have been regulars on the panel or have been on the panel at one time or another.

These funding cuts are entirely at the discretion of the governor.

The law as it as it properly are and that's where it is always been at least since the 40s.

And it turns out they had called Hugh Patterson, the publisher of The Gazette, and said we want somebody from The Gazette to be owned.

Arkansas weekly show it is.

Ernie Dumas will do that.

So I didn't want to be on television.

I didn't think I was cut out for television and still don't.

But anyway, so I felt like I had no, no, no choice about the matter.

So I showed up up here to to record the first show I would have come on at the start of 91 when I went back to journalism again.

And at that time you had like a regular cast.

And so did it at that point almost every week for the next 5 1/2 years.

Well, he's he's ready to have some fun.

And I think he deserves too.

Goodness sakes, after three.

And 1/2 decades in elected office.

And the seat was his, obviously, for as long as he wanted it.

Had David Pryor run again next year, he would have had, if any democratic opposition token at best.

Well, Steve Barnes obviously was the host even back then, and then the other regulars were Joan Duffy and Max Brantley.

It's going to be even more difficult for the Democrats to regain any kind of control in the Senate.

Max and Joan naturally leaned a little bit more.

To the left and the I did.

I probably played further to the right that I am from time to time for good television.

But we would get tickled because Joan would travel the state and she would have ******** people.

For more the left side of the spectrum come up and say, boy, don't you just hate that Rex Nelson?

Don't you just want to punch him?

And I would have people from the more conservative right side of the spectrum come out and say, boy, don't you get sick of that Joan Duffy.

But they didn't realize, as Joan and I drove together to Conway every week, I would pick her up at her house.

So we would get a great kick out of that since we accompanied each other over for the taping every week.

It was as tumultuous a Monday as one could imagine.

Several hours of chaos followed by some much appreciated calm.

From its origin Arkansas Week has been about perspective and analysis.

Long form the interview that need not be compressed into 40 seconds or less.

We have a very poisoned atmosphere in Washington these days and the the way the election aftermath has transpired has has not helped that atmosphere.

Arkansas week so unique in the way it brought the state together that across multiple television markets.

He he is tried to say that he thinks that teacher salaries can be increased and so forth without the new taxes.

If you wanted to have a discussion or try to get an understanding of what was going on behind the scenes in Arkansas politics and business, you turned Arkansas week on Friday nights.

There's time to reflect, time to produce, time to assess, time to share with an audience what you cannot share simply from the virtue of you of having more time.

What, you can't share on a regular news broadcast.

We thank you for joining us.

We'll do this again soon.

Thank you for watching.

Goodnight.

40 years.

Thank you again and always and see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and K KUARFM, 89.