Landmark Funding
The Arkansas school that played a historic role in ending racial segregation in public education is set to receive $500,000 from the federal government for needed repairs.
Little Rock Central High School was on a list of grant recipients announced last month by the White House under the Save America’s Treasures program, run by the Department of Interior.
The money will help pay for efforts to repair leaking roofs, deteriorating drainage systems, crumbling ceilings, and damaged wall plaster.
Central High School was designated a national historic site in 1998. A major confrontation over implementation of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision took place at the school in 1957, three years after the ruling was handed down.
Federal intervention was required to enable nine African-American students—dubbed the Little Rock Nine—to integrate the all-white school despite violent protests by supporters of segregation.
On the Road Again
Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley had better check the air conditioning before heading off on his second back-to-school bus tour this summer.
The secretary plans to hop the “Success Express” late this month to visit schools along the Mississippi River, starting in the Deep South with stops in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. The four-day tour will ultimately take him through seven states, finishing up in Illinois.
“Each region of the country has special needs and concerns, but everywhere, education is the express bus on the road to economic success,” Mr. Riley said in a recent statement.
Mr. Riley has visited more than 325 schools during his 71/2 years as secretary, and last fall took a Success Express bus tour along the South’s Interstate 85 corridor, visiting schools in 10 states. (“On the Bus: Riley Hits the Road With His K-12 Message,” Sept. 8, 1999.)
—Erik W. Robelen federal@epe.org
