The Delta: Education and Economy

The Arkansas Delta is rich in history and culture its people and places are loaded with stories that tell of the heritage of the region. However the Delta has had its share of challenges and problems and we're going to take a look at two areas education and economy in the Arkansas Delta and talk about the strengths and weaknesses. Hello I'm your host Pamela Smith Now we also have a panel of experts in the studio and we also have people at age of 80 and downlink sites throughout the Delta who will be joining us via teleconferencing for this discussion. Joining me in the studio are Senator Kevin Smith co-chair of the Delta caucus. Sibyl Jordan Hampton president of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation Ernest mith

principal at Portland elementary school Betty Magruder assistant superintendent of Lee County schools and Joe Black program director at Southern Development Bank Corp.. And we want to say thank all of you for joining us and thank you at home for joining us now our phone lines are open to take your calls. The toll free number is 1 866 2 2 3 8 6. Our fax number is 5 0 1 8 5 2 2 2 8 0. And you can also e-mail us at p. affairs at 8am dot org. Now we're going to get right into the conversation let's start now with Senator Smith let's talk a little bit about your perspective of the delta and how you see it today. Well thanks Pamela and thanks for inviting us to be here and for hosting this program which I think is very important. I think we're on the cusp of a very an important time in the Delta's history because we're getting ready to start the Delta regional authority and get ready to hear from the president's federal co-chair that tomorrow. But I think we're going to see more than we've ever seen a national effort to focus the nation's

resources and other resources on a scale large enough to actually accomplish something. We're going to hear a lot of stories tonight about projects that work and we don't hear enough about those projects that work. The problem is they're not big enough to meet the scale of the need but I think this bill to raise more authority will give us the scale that we need so I'm excited about the future but we'll look forward to hearing more about that tonight we're going to visit with Mr. Smith Now who is the principal a longtime educator I understand 35 years I know you have a lot to talk about in terms of personal reflections about the Delta 35 is almost there actually this is my forty sixth year in education and all of it in the delta. We get a lot of negative publicity about how poor our schools are in the delta and indeed we have some rather naïve or awake sites but that's not true everywhere you're going to hear a couple of examples. My little school Portland Elementary has received national attention and a client. And later this evening I would like to discuss a little bit of what we did to to reach that

level. We're not where we need to be yet but. We're involved in creating a positive climate in our place. And not only that but inviting other schools to come take a look at our little guys to see what makes us. Thank you Mr. Smith and Mr. Black. You represent Southern Development Bank share corporation. Tell us a little bit about your perspective from the economic side of things. The delta is an economy in transition moving from a traditional role crop agricultural economy to a modern industrial service economy. Unfortunately the legacy of a natural resource agricultural economy is that it didn't leave a seed of entrepreneurial development. And we're having to both create an alternative to agriculture which still has a major capital impact on the Delta but is no longer a major employer. So we haven't tried to create alternatives to grow crop agriculture. All right thank you and Mr. greater representing the Lake County School District. Tell us a little bit about what you see happening in your area of the state.

While our particular school district proud I'm excited we're we're on the brink of making some turnaround decisions we've initiated an accountability team. The last two years and that has really been a benefit to our teachers to help us focus on where our needs really lie. And I feel like Mr. Smith Barney Smith and I were in the trenches every day and we know when we can see any little improvement we really get excited about because we have really had an uphill battle. Thank you. And I know you've been very instrumental representing the Rockefeller Foundation in terms of providing some much needed financing to help get some of the efforts we're talking about rolling in the community so it will tell us a little bit about that. One of the wonderful things about the work of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation is we get to join in with people who are on the move. And so much of our funding in the Delta communities has been outreach to people who have reached out to us to partner with them

in order to seed. Entrepreneurship seed creative new ideas on the southern Development Bank Corporation where Joe now works is one of the project's long standing projects that we were involved in the creation. We have worked in Marvel where we now know that people in that school district voted to build a new school which is almost an unheard of decision and part of the community in these days. And we also have been working in Clarendon where there are a number of tremendous things happening not only on the economic development front but also in building new housing for the first time a number of years. Oh great thank you and we're looking forward to learning more about that tonight as well. We want to remind you at home that you do have the opportunity to call in and share some of your concerns and perhaps some of your insights about the Delta we want to remind you of the number it's 1 866 2 2 3 8 6 we hear the phones ringing and we invite you to continue to call him. Let's talk a little bit about

perspective now because so often when we hear about the Deltas I've heard some of you mention it's not always cast in the most positive light but we know that some wonderful things are going on there how do we get people to begin to change the perspective there. Well Pam agree with you. I think one of the biggest problems that we have is a sense of hopelessness in the region in the region itself outside the region. People who think they just sort of throw up their hands and think there's nothing you can do but you can do things and people sort of closer in the trenches as I say. I see that every day you can turn people around. We've seen it elsewhere in the country that the upland south for most of this century is one of the poorest regions of the country. Now it's one of the fastest growing regions of the country northwest Arkansas Tennessee River Valley Appalachian. And that I think in part because we focused our nation's attention on it and we're getting ready to do that now and I think there's a real reason to have hope. And I think there

always has been and as long as we don't give up hope. I think we can lick this. And I think we will if this is this him as I like to say you know this is America. We should never give up on the delta region. We can do anything we put our mind to. And I think we just have to put our mind to it. OK Mr. Smith if you want to share you said you've done some wonderful things in the school which you represent now. Tell us a little bit more about that. OK our children have done some wonderful thing and that's great to hear. Let me back up. Eight years ago eight years ago my school as a kindergarten through sixth grade the standardized test scores placed at an average of about 38 percent tile. That's poor. But we were doing as well as everybody else around us and so we were just sitting back complacent and all of that sort of thing. Somebody pointed out to convince me what a poor job we were doing. She always reached out to a farm in New York

of all places to come in and teach us a methodology called Direct Instruction and their materials were published by a sorry McGraw-Hill. But anyway they came in a team came in and looked at our program in depth. They found out among other things that out of the six hour mandated school day we were actually teaching three and a half hours. And we thought we were doing well. First thing we did we clean up our schedule. We increased that three and a half hours up to five hours. We cut out things like kindergarten naps. We have one recession a day. We spend our time eyeball to eyeball hardcore teaching and it started to pay off. There would have been a miracle and you know it was it we increased about 5 percent our points per year. Today as I speak we are near the 80th percentile has a school that's very balanced now. Along came the new program the new testing program that the state has the benchmark test. Now we haven't mastered that one yet. And it's

interesting that the entire state the first year we took that fourth grade benchmark task fifth more than 50 percent of the kids in the state of Arkansas failed that test and we all complain and moan and groan to pass just too hard. But our director director of the Department of Education right Simon says look we set the bar way up here and we know it's high but we're only asking you to jump a little higher every year to you get there and we're working on it. Give us a little time and we'll master that. We have gotten quite a bit of media attention. We were in the Reader's Digest back in February a part of the story we've been included in a study by the Heritage Foundation a think tank out of Washington D.C. and we've been visited by over 200 groups of educators the last two years and folks I'm talking about a little country a cotton patch school in a town of 500 60 people. And there is a cotton patch right across the street. You say you're implementing a model that

can be adapted and it wasn't just a matter what ology it was it was a number of things. We have a five fold a in house four year old program and which we do what we used to do in a developmental kindergarten. So we're preparing our little guy as a year ahead of most people and it's having stunning results. Then our kindergarten is strictly academic from day one. So we hit the ground running and we don't stop. And they're very impressed and we're I'm quite proud of our little guys and the staff that I have there at Portland and more than that I think I'm proud of the fact that we have shared that with a lot of screw who have adopted at least a part of our program. But now my methodology isn't the only one that works you can plug in another right there as long as 80 percent of your staff believes in what you're doing. You can get there. You can go if you create a learning environment in your school i Bosley the environment where parents kids teachers the

old principal believe in what you're doing you can go. I don't care where you are you can get everybody excited that way. Yes you want to share your sentiments about that and perhaps what's going on with your particular district. Sure we came in on the heels of Mr Smith school the following year and won the title one distinguished school award. But when I say we I mean everyone from the teachers the clerical staff our instructional our custodians because not only is what goes on in the classroom important but the whole school environment the cafeteria the the grounds everything if you. The kids need to feel welcome they need to feel safe. They need to feel good about being there and then they are receptive to anything that you put out as far as the instruction goes and that's what the staff it would not only treat it. They everybody jumped on the bandwagon. They all bought into the program. Our test scores rose. We won the title one distinguished group award in 1999 and I like to

congratulate you on that you and I as a result and because it was an entire school effort the entire school staff went to San Diego with us to accept the award. And I go to the custody of staff and this woman over there. So it and then the morale rose. And every time you make an improvement if it bleeds over to the children they can say it that they can feel it because they come with so much baggage when they come to us. Just things that they have no control over. And if you make school their favorite place to be like very very early and they don't want to go home they come eager and ready to learn they do. Well that's wonderful congratulations again on that distinction that not many people can have that to brag about in this wonderful. Now we're we're talking about some of the successes let's address still on the topic of education. Let's address a little bit of the concerns that you have in terms of. What challenges you face and where you

need to go. Now you talked about the benchmark exam. What else. What are the other areas of concern you're dealing with. We still have to deal with what happens to the children after they go home and that's our thing and that's a lot of times negative. But we're doing after school programs we're doing before school programs plus bringing these little gadgets into the school as four year olds instead of Whiting so that we change the direction that they're going. Now we have experienced a problem in our part of the Delta welfare reform has melted away part of our school population. My school has had a dramatic demographic change in the last 10 years. We've gone from a school pretty well racially balanced 50/50 down to today 23 percent of my students now are African-American. They have disappeared. I think they've gone to Helena to Pine Bluff to Little Rock to Greenville Mississippi. But they have disappeared from the

same. So you know we lament that fact. Wait wait now part of that population is being has being replaced by Hispanic children. And the program that we have Believe it or not if we can get a little hispanic guy straight out of Mexico speak not a single word of English. If we can get him in that four year old program we have found that we can teach him just as fast as our own children. So now I know that's an that's an issue that we're facing in Arkansas and the educational system period in terms of the influx of Spanish speaking my students. What are you able to do in terms of dealing with that on a massive level in terms of you know your whole program my level with with the Hispanic issue. We're not massive is as you are in northwest Arkansas. My Hispanic population is about 10 percent. So you know we can we can assemble a dish and and and cope with this easily.

We're also finding that our Hispanic parents have high high expectations for their children. They're coming from so their poverty and that sort of thing and when they get here and show you the opportunity. Boy you talk about parents that support your school. They come to our PTO meetings there at school for all of our advantage and we love having them and that which is another thing that the parent participation in your school is a part of that positive school climate that you've got to have. But you know we welcome the challenge. Now if I were in a school district where suddenly I am overwhelmed with you know 60 70 percent different population that's a different story than mine is at a level where we can embrace it and cherish it and work with it. All right. It's great to hear it. Thank you very much. Want to remind you now you have an opportunity to call in and talk to our panel of experts they have answers for you tonight and if you want to share some of your concerns you're welcome to do that as well the number is 1 800 860 2

3 8 6 now we know that in order to have a strong community education is a very important component of that. And in order to attract business. Have the economic development you gotta have you know the two go together. Tell us a little bit about what kind of challenges you see in terms of economic development for the delta area. I like the word challenges versus problems. We're starting to get it right and understand what a successful model of economic development looks like in areas of pervasive poverty like the Delta historically development in the Delta consisted of a government program coming in would have a lifecycle of two to five years and then leaving developing little or no local capacity no organizations to sustain the effort. Now economic development is centered in communities and communities and realize it's not the government's mission to turn your community around as your mission in the government's mission is

to assist you in facilitating it. So people starting to take control of the situation and developing sustainable entities like when Rockefeller role as the need to create an entity to provide access to capital to low income individuals and created a Southern Development Bank Corporation. We're not a program we're an organization into today will exist into the next decade and beyond addressing the credit needs of the Delta providing access to capital to people who traditionally haven't had access to capital. That's creating some staying solutions versus creating programs did then and not solutions. We're creating you're seeing more and more nonprofit organizations developing into the delta working to sustain initiatives providing the support services necessary to keep programs going and all of a sudden. Communities used to account for themselves and independently do their own thing. And programs like you always

tended to do their own thing. Education was viewed as separate from economic development housing was viewed as separate. And what we've discovered is to have a successful model of development. You've got to have a massive concentration of all of those things Education Workforce Development housing access to capital. If you want to turn around areas of pervasive poverty in any one of those units working independently of the other you're still going to have problems. Well you bring in the perfect opportunity for us to segue to a question for civil now with regards to buying into development and what the Delta is trying to do because I'm of the belief that the hole is only as good as the sum of the parts. So tell me a little bit about why you and the foundation you represent feels it's so important to become involved and and what's going on in the delta. Well it's clear to us that the whole state will all rise as a whole or we won't rise and that the delta is a

very very important part that all the low wealth communities in this state have to be get a boost if the state is going to release stabilize and realized the greatness as a whole. This state is made up of parts but all of those parts have to work together and have to have similar bases of strength. We believe that wonderful things have happened in the delta but we also know that one of the reasons the delta is having problems is because of that which sustained the Delta economy in the old days hootch meant that people did not need education in order to go out and pick cotton or to work in the fields is the very thing that now will not allow the Delta to rise because the lack of investment in the education of the children of the workers has now led to a situation where people who are old time planters are going my God I can't continue to have a base of wealth in the future because

I didn't invest in the wealth of the people totally across the face of the community. And we know that we have the wonderful privilege of not being a political organization. And so that we can hang in there. And go in as first seed money and really encourage people to dream big dreams to take risk and to get the resources the technical assistance that's needed to help people make sure that this little seedling in the community takes life and grows into a big oak. I really want to talk about Clarendon. We are bored one of things that's very important for I think for everyone to know about us we're not experts on the Delta. We are growing and learning and we're learning by trying to be there on the ground and our board took its September meeting to the delta. We went to Marvel we went to Clarendon and in Clarendon we were part of a town meeting where we could

see how a grant that we've made in conjunction with the Nature Conservancy has the opportunity of touching the community. And it was important for people in the community to know that the board of the month the Rockefeller Foundation came to listen. We didn't come to tell anything we came to listen. And that's a very important part of being I think proactive and connected to people who are ready to go to the next step in change process things. All right thank you very much. Now we told you we would be talking with other sites throughout teleconferencing tonight so we're going to be joined on the phone right now by Pete Johnson who is the federal co-chair of the Delta regional authority a recently formed organization. Mr. Johnson are you there with us. I am with you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Tell us a little bit about the Delta regional authority and what your mission is the Delta regional authority idea was conceived a number of years ago and a panel of the governors of three states here came together at that time Governor

Bill Clinton Governor Buddy Roemer of Louisiana and governor right of Mississippi. And it was a novel idea and it was around 1988. And while the organization itself pursued. Developmental deal as it never really got off the ground until last year when it was signed into law and the Delta regional authority is just now getting underway. In January of this year President George W. Bush had indicated a desire to nominate me for this position and for the last nine or 10 months now I have been going through the presidential appointment process and have completed that now. And it was recently confirmed by the United States Senate and will be sworn into

the position this coming Tuesday. Well congratulations on though you are excited to get started with your work there tell us a little bit about what we can look forward to your office being able to do. Well I will. As encouraged by many of the comments that I've heard tonight from your other guests I think that they're right on target. We've had some wonderful initiatives and efforts throughout the region for some time but I think everyone will will admit as your guest did tonight that we've fallen short of the mark rival roudy of reasons the Delta regional authority was put together to coordinate the activities of those who have who are stakeholders in the region. This would include not only the federal government and the investments that it makes but also foundations and nonprofits as well as other corporations. Too often we have we've trained our people to

be consumers and we haven't trained them to be producers and the right hand is oftentimes not knowing what the left hand is doing well it's going to be my job to coordinate all the hands and all the bows who have been working for years to try to change the economy of the region what the expectation that by working together we can set definable goals and that we can achieve the ultimate goal of lifting our region out of the poverty that has cracked it for some 30 years now. Well thank you very much for sharing that insight now. Mr. Johnson is going to be remaining on the line with us so if you have some questions specifically for him and you want him to answer them please call us at 1 800 1:54 3 8 6 we do appreciate some of the calls we've gotten already. This one is one at that. Perhaps we take for granted that everybody knows where the delta area is.

So somebody please address this question for us. I guess you can do that Senator Smith a moment. I'll take a stab at that. The Delta the true Delta is at the mouth of the Mississippi River Delta is mostly. Cultural term for their live view applying to the lower Mississippi Valley which roughly runs from the southern tip of Illinois down to just north of New Orleans and it's characterized by what you see when you drive to Memphis from Iraq it goes from from the foot hills of the Ozarks to flat. I leave you with a dark rich soul and and with that comes a history and a culture and what we discovered in the 80s I think maybe longer than that. But politically in the 80s was it when just eastern Arkansas experiencing these these challenges or these problems it was also there saw the river in Mississippi and western Tennessee and southeast Missouri and southern Illinois and Northeast Louisiana. And but we had that river separateness. And so what Congress did with the Delta vellum Act of 1998 Senator Bumpers

introduced that I think people are talking about is put those puzzles together and we saw a region much like the Appalachian region and ignore the political boundaries and that's the delta region. Thank you very much. This question now from your area of Lake County. What can support groups do to help churches in America where he wants to tackle that question. Actually we have just received a grant. It's the 21st century Grant in Lee County and that grant is gone through and I have to be able to embrace our community in a way that we've never been able to before. We've just we have had our coordinator. She is in the process of hiring the other personnel that will need her and carrying out this program. The coordinator I know has already met with our local librarian. She's met with our county judge she's met with our county extension officer office personnel. We are going to

get the 4H up and running strongly we have made several attempts but we just haven't had the means to really get it up and going there and course there are a lot of opportunities in our area for these young people that they can be exposed to through the 4H program. We are fortunate in that we have the University of Arkansas Law experiment station there in Mariana and we have top to the Elm and they're going to make their facilities available to us. We are just going to be able to utilize everything that's available in our community and there's a lot they are. It just has not been exposed the children have not been exposed to the opportunities they are simply because the time the mange and the personnel have not began and now we have it all. And we're going to utilize it to benefit our students. OK thank you. And Mr. Johnson I know you're still there and you can feel free to jump in at any time if there is just something that is urgent to you that you want to express tonight.

Here's another question from Poleski County. Are you receiving the same technology or technological help as urban areas. Well since you've invited my jumping in let me address that. One of the things that we will be charged with is dealing with the infrastructure of the region and the technology of the region is an important part of our being able to communicate thoughts and ideas and to apply technologies that are commonplace in other areas of the country for example telephone lines. People throughout our region don't even have telephones still. But the same time our electric transmission lines are woefully insufficient. We cannot develop an economy we can't create jobs we can't find opportunities for these students who are coming out of the schools. Unless we have the employer structure the water systems power lines bridges and roads to encourage economic development. The

technology is an it is a very important part of everything that we're doing especially in the classroom. All right well thank you very much and Senator Smith wanted to add something to that. I want to add to that. I think he's exactly right. If if we're going to move into it we're we are in a knowledge based economy. And that requires broadband access for any business is going to grow in that kind of economy. That's just a basic necessity before they'll even look at you. And yet we're aware. Studies have shown that we're the least digitally connected region of the country. We have to change that. If you look at the Tennessee Valley Authority when we started in the 30s President Roosevelt made flood control electricity. The main focus of that entity. If you look at the Appalachian Regional Commission President Johnson right highway was the biggest focus of that I would like to see. And I know this isn't just up to you but the

whole commission including Governor Huckabee in Rabat to say technology be the main focus of that and the education that goes with it. My son loves technology as do most kids these days they're always running around playing on those gadgets. If they don't have a job come back to when I graduate. Then I can come back to the delta and we're going to lose that Bryan join and if you'll permit me it's his birthday I didn't write he's 12 years out because I'm here so I want to say happy birthday to drive it home to retire that sentiment happy birthday. But we have to do something about that and we have the chance now this death raised all the wording and let me let me address that to what Senator Smith said and compliment some of the comments he didn't make. In 1982 I was present at Chamber of Commerce over here on the eastern side of the river. And I held all of our Chamber of Commerce meetings in our public schools and in our high school at the end of our meeting

I say Yeah the teachers had told us what a fine job they were doing and yet one of our business men said he had tried to hire one of our graduates but the graduate didn't even know fractions. And I pose that question to the staff and the vice president of the student body stood up and said May I answer the question. And then he said Did it ever occur to you that this is the smart capable students that are coming out of our schools are leaving and going where they can get good jobs where they can use the skills that they were taught in the schools and the only ones you're saying staying in the region are the kids who can't get jobs elsewhere. They weren't good students. And how often have we seen that. But we really ignored it that we haven't fully discharged our responsibility to bring the technology in to bring the highways and to and to bring the jobs to the region that will give our kids a chance to stay here. OK. I'd like to make a comment about what's going on. Some of the things that I know that

are going on are areas that bring communities into the knowledge based economy. There are a group of young people in Dir in the school district who are working through the East program and that's a program that's really fairly present pervasive in rural school districts. And it's a program that's designed to have teachers facilitate the learning of young people with computers where they're solving problems not only in the school but in the community. And the problem that these young people solved was how would helicopters be able to fly into Newton County to pick up critically ill patients so that they wouldn't have to be involved in that hilly twenty five minute drive to Harrison. And so using g P.S. those young people went all over the county and have now provided the kind of map so that emergency service workers have an opportunity to. And in and in and

Greenbriar the young people in the east also had an opportunity to map for the far Department. All of the businesses to show using the digital digital camera. How do you get access to the building. Where are the hazardous material so that there are things going on. And Will communities where young people are really being challenged and I think our responsibility is to make sure that public policy in Arkansas supports all of the infrastructure for the technological age. Thank you. Now I was just about to ask you if you want to know why and I don't and I would like to mention that Morton elementary school is a part of the Hamburg school district and our school board and superintendent has made sure that every classroom in our district has at least minimum even down at the primary kindergarten level to computers with internet access in every classroom. You'll see our little kindergarten guys second semester they've been up and down the hall

going to check out what we call it shallow rated raters. There are an awful lot of schools in Arkansas that are using that program. They go in turn on the computer pull up their program and take tests on the computer by themselves. It's unbelievable what this is going on all over the state of Arkansas and it's highly national Sherry. And when you're my age I had to be dragged into the technology part of this thing. But what I'm seeing now I'm as excited as you youngsters are about the technology that's been that were you know Delta now tell us a little bit about your particular award and what you were successful in doing in order to achieve that. We see the program the war that she talked about was The Help me with that what was kind of line that title won distinguished distinguished basket award in 1998 when we were so you that award we will want to 109 schools nationwide that were honored. Now the requirement to get that award is you had to have

three consecutive years of improving standardized test scores and a lot of schools get nearly there and fall back but we were fortunate and had those three years. And as Mr. Magruder was telling you the way that our entire. Our staff including the good the librarians the everybody we were flown to Orlando to receive the award. But that was that was the first thing that happened then we were selected by the Heritage Foundation as one of 21 high poverty schools in the United States that they did a study on and to qualify for that we had to be at 75 percent free and reduced lunch at least a 75 percentile. And we were barely there but we made that study and I still get phone calls weekly and this study has been out two years from schools wanting to come from other states to visit my little tiny place and they have to fly into either Little Rock or Munroe Louisiana or Greenville Mississippi to get to Portland

Oregon so we had a group last year and this is Delta. We had a group from Kansas to come in last year and they were so excited about our cotton fields we almost couldn't get them to look at. Our educational program let me add something to that if I may. It's thing you're edging to hear these successes. Our challenge however is to see that every school has that success right and that every child has that opportunity. And and it's going to take such a profound commitment and coordinated effort by all of us at all levels whether we be foundations our state government all federal government or even private enterprise as they sponsor schools. And so our goal should be to take the successes that we've just heard about and apply them throughout our entire region. And if we're able to do that with some consistency and some continuity I think we're going to see a region begin to rise

because we will have to put out pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps right. And it sounds like that's what a lot of Arkansas lines are doing. Well it certainly sounds like it tonight. Thank you very much for sharing your insight in that regard we want to remind our sides to call in because we're looking forward to hearing from you tonight as well and you at home are welcome to continue to call in when 860 2 3 8 6 Let's bring Mr. Black into the discussion now this is a question with regards to industry from Faulkner County what types of industry or businesses are coming into the delta and what are you doing to encourage new jobs there. Forgive me for keep mentioning tradition because it affects what we're doing now and traditionally the Delta has marketed its cheap labor low taxes cheap land to recruit smokestack industry our branch plants to come and locate and what happen is that those types

of bland plants continue to move south seeking to exploit even cheaper labor even across the border. Even cheaper taxes even cheaper land. What we're discovering now to create in terms of job creation we've got to make a commitment to help homegrown businesses develop and spring up and provide those homegrown businesses with access to capital necessary with the technical assistance necessary for them to be successful and compete in the global marketplace. One of the other negatives of the built in is not negative is just the situation. Is that like the resources and technical assistance for many of these companies to access and competing in a global marketplace. Small home grown businesses are no longer just competing with the business across town. Give us an example of a homegrown business if you don't mind. You know I can think of you men in numerous grocery stores in

those times of businesses but the object is to create businesses that sale beyond their local market area and bring capital inside the region. And we've been fortunate enough to fund several businesses that during the course of expanding and growing outside a local market area but they start out as businesses employing two or three people grow to employ 10 people and 70 to 80 percent of the people employed in Arkansas are employed in small businesses. So it's a viable resource and we've not approach you know my company has made over 100 million dollars in development loans not to small businesses. Women and minorities to create businesses and grow businesses. And in and of itself that sounds like a lot but it's not enough. We've got to find way to deliver more credits and provide access to capital to people who traditionally not been able to access capital. Thank you for sharing that with us. We do have a call from one of our sites now live call from West Memphis are you there.

Yes ma'am Well this is when from West Memphis. And I work permits at a community college. Thank you for calling and want to say hello to Senator Smith who is one of our neighbors very close to West Memphis you plan how you do. I'm great how are you. Just an observation and it might be a question for the panel. I think we will all agree in theory that the key to the future of the delta is the development of our human capital that that is going to be at the very core of any expansion economically that we're going to hope to be able to sustain. My concern or at least my comment goes to the fact that in almost every circumstance economic development experts will tell you. That there is nothing as important for economic development as investment in education particularly investment in higher education.

Does the panel see any problem with the level of investment in higher education opportunities that exist in the Delta as opposed to that that exists in other parts of our state or even in other parts of our country. All right thank you very much Senator Smith. Glenn I think I think you're absolutely right in a knowledge based economy again. If you notice those communities that are doing the best are the ones with the most investment higher education who are in town right now Conway that probably wouldn't be what it is today if it weren't for UCLA and hinders the same is true if it one you can go all around the country and and now I think you're exactly right. When we don't have a real strong investment in higher education in the delta. And when companies look with knowledge that is jobs and now they're not spice jobs necessarily mean you have to work at IBM. Everything has a computer in it nowadays even a tractor has a computer in it so everything is a knowledge based. They're going to look for where they can get a knowledge based workforce and that's going to be where you have higher education so are I was we we

quadruple our investment in higher education in the Delta I thank you. It would yield the vast benefits. Thank you in the Forrest City area of the West Memphis area everywhere where we have the junior colleges available for our young people. Sometimes our our students graduate high school and when they look ahead and they find out 4 years or 5 years I'll never make that I can't if that's that's just too big a bite for them to comprehend especially if the family has no money and they might fall into that area where they don't qualify for aid. Family can't do it but if there is a community college in their area where they can go to school part time work part time and they get those two full years behind them then the rest of it doesn't look so impossible. So I think that that is a tremendous benefit in our area are the community colleges. Thank you Joe wants to add to that. Yeah it's for easy to quantify the economic problems in the Delta branch plants little value added production. But the

bill to also host some social ills effect. There wasn't a premium on education in the delta in the 60s. There was a premium on maintaining access to cheap labor for formally and then worse some communities benefited from focusing on education earlier than that region do. And they're reaping the benefits of that focus has changed now but we're playing catch up. As we switch from agricultural to manufacturing and service economy. Thank you. Glenn did that answer your question or did you have a follow up. I think it speaks well that we can recognize that if we have an opportunity to create a brighter future in the delta that education is going to be at the foundation of that opportunity and I'm I'm pleased that the panel recognizes that what if

whatever advances we have made have been accompanied by our additional investments in education and that really is where our future lies. And I just add that I think this delta raising the authority and if your list and I think you can be a tremendous advocate for higher education in Washington Washington gives out billions of dollars to higher education in this country based on formula and lots of other things. We haven't had a voice as a region in Washington going after those dollars and I think the deaf regional forum can play that role. I would agree with you. I now think that that's certainly one of the one of the thrusts that we will focus on our institution of higher learning are very important throughout the region and and I would agree with the comments earlier about them about how we've seen economies develop around these institutions of higher learning. I've been somewhat miffed by the fact as I as after I'm from rural America look

east and and with all the technology that we have I don't understand why today we have to headquarter government in the beltway in Maryland and Washington D.C. Why can't the Federal Aviation Administration be located in West Memphis Arkansas for example. Why can't we locate these federal agencies in your Arkansas State University. Why can't we locate them throughout the region and move them out of the northeast and put them out here where the people are. And I think that it's you're exactly right that institutions of higher learning are terrific sources of some great minds. And we're not taking advantage of those. And and I would hope that we would be able to work with. With the Department of Education and with other government agencies to start channeling money to our institutions of

higher learning I'm a strong proponent of that and and I look forward to playing a role in that effort. Well Pete I see a number of panelists heads nodding in agreement to those observations. Sibyl has something she wants to add to that. It does seem to be that something that Mr. Smith said about one of the things happening in Portland is very important for us to keep in mind in thinking about balance in where we have our priorities in education. Four year olds who are attended to arrive at kindergarten in a frame ready to learn. I think that one of the real hopes for the state long term in terms of the value of education in the value of higher education is if people are ready to learn their learning experiences are exciting and education isn't nearly as on or worse as it turns out to be for so many young people in our state so many children. And so that I think that placing an emphasis on three and four year education which is something that we're

doing in the foundation now we really would like to see high quality early three four year old education comprehensive in the state of Arkansas because readiness will free up dollars that we put into special education and other kind of remedial development programs so that we can have quality education all across the board. Thank him. Unfortunately probably most of the screwed state of Arkansas do not have a four year old program. And with the economy on a downturn as it is that's probably not going to happen soon. But it's so important so important and I would like to add that our governor you know I mentioned a while ago we used to kid had and do poorly and nobody cared and nobody paid any attention. This governor through his state department of education through a sham and has gotten us by the hand and they're dragging us where we want them and and executor and Excel are not there shining the spotlight on us if we're not doing our best. And we have we have no alternative now but to do better.

Thank you. On the other end of the spectrum we we are going to be able to install a safety net because of our 21st century grant for our girls in the hospital who are single mothers. Sometimes they can't come to school because they don't have any day care. They may miss a day two days a week because there's no one to keep the child. What were what the plans are now are to start a daycare training facility on site at our house. One of the requirements is that the mothers have to work in that particular course or that one period to period for the day. And we're hoping to do this in conjunction with maybe Crowley's Ridge vocational school in fourth city or someone and actually have some type of licensure that the girls could learn to become a licensed day care center worker So not only will they finish their education their children also be cared for and they can graduate and maybe have a chance at some productive location.

Thank you let me just begin a bit just a moment if I may this is Pete Johnson with your. I think that what we've been talking about as much as anything is how we break this cycle of dependency that has that come out of the early 50s when agriculture was mechanized and and then in the 60s we had the problems with with our primary industry that being in agriculture turning its back to the people who needed it the most. And then as we try to break this cycle of dependency there been so many wonderful studies and I'm here and so many good things tonight. Chicago had a study done in its school system that lasted about 12 years and the University of Wisconsin in Madison participated in that study and it concluded that when we get to these children at a very young age it sets the child off on the right foot. But if the child goes back into an environment where

those things that the child is not is learning at the daycare where those things are not reinforced by the mother or that environment then the child really doesn't come out of the system with the with the strengths and the educational too that they can if the parent is included in this process and elated of just before me was just right on target I think in that we must include these young mothers and we must get them more involved and teach them how to be better. It's called having to learn on their own. And if we're going to break the cycle of dependency I think that's where we have to start. All right thank you very much. We're going to allow our panelists to make some final comments unfortunately we have come to the close of this program and we certainly hope you've gotten some insightful information to help you. But let's go around the table here and get some final comments from the interview.

Pam again thanks to you for hosting us. AFAIK As I said at the beginning anybody who thinks you can't solve the problems in the Delta are wrong and they've been proven wrong tonight just for every problem there is a solution in the delta and we've seen that situation but it hasn't been on a big enough scale to make a dramatic change in the delta region. And as long as we don't lose hope or faith. And as long as way we work hard with this Delta regional authority I think maybe we can finally get the level of attention scale. A solution to made the problem the scale of the problem right. You know I'm very hopeful tomorrow. Thank you Senator Smith. Very quickly now Mr. Whitley I would just like to invite everyone watching to pay a visit to Portland elementary give me at least one day's notice and I'll promise you my kids will. While you did it. All right thank you. We're suddenly putting the pieces together at the national level we now have a Delta regional authority to focus national and federal resources to focus on

infrastructure at the state and local level. We're establishing sustaining own going so Petch awaiting organizations to address housing economic development education. Were realizing there is a linkage between those and a Tuesday not separate from one another. And that I think will be the problem. All right thank you. I'm also associated with a huge school district in that I am on the school board there and our superintendent always says something he says that society mirrors education and I think that we have to work on both components to continue in the right direction and to make improvements and we're trying in Lake County. Thank you very quickly now the delta. It's a place where everybody matters and everybody's voice should be brought to the table to make a vision to plan a vision for the future. All right well thank you so much we do appreciate your insight tonight and thank you at home we want to remind you that you will have an opportunity to get additional information about what you've heard tonight we certainly

hope that you have benefited from all of the comments that were made here. We'd like to say a special thank you also to Pete Johnson the federal co-chair of the Delta regional authority. Again thank you so much for watching and we hope you have a great night.