When families in Arkansas sit around their dinner table and talk about what they love most, it isn't that big car in the driveway, or that posh office downtown or the big fields of rice and soybeans out back. It is their children.
Dale Bumpers
Prior to becoming governor, Dale Bumpers was a member of the Charleston School Board in Arkansas. He maintained an interest in education throughout his years in office. Due to his unwavering support of the public education system, Bumpers was successful in improving the quality of education for all students in the state.
Bumpers established a task force with the responsibility of reporting how the state could improve the educational system, primarily in the fields of vocational training, children with special needs, gifted children and minorities. As a result, the Bumper's administration formulated wide-ranging legislation including the creation of a state-supported kindergarten program; free textbooks for high school students; increased assistance for children with special needs; raising teachers' salaries and retirement benefits and implementing major construction programs at the state's colleges.
One of most successful programs resulted in the establishment of two-year colleges across the state. Today, there are twenty-two two-year colleges in Arkansas supported by local taxes and state-funds. Many Many of the graduates of these schools continue their studies in four-year schools.
Materials in series I, subseries I, boxes 17-18 provide a useful starting point for researchers interested in issues related to education in Arkansas during the early 1970s.