When You Loan the Skillet, Look at the Kitchen

I was sitting on Aunt Vi's porch last Tuesday, shelling peas into a colander that's been in her family longer than I've been alive, and she said something that's been rattling around in my head ever since. You know how it is when your hands are busy and your mind starts to wander. That's what happened.

She said, "Bobby, you can't just loan a man your best cast iron without ever asking to see his kitchen. That's not trust, that's just being careless with good iron."

And I thought, well. That's the whole thing right there.

I'd been reading about this private school program in Arkansas, where families can take taxpayer dollars and use them for private school tuition. And I understand the appeal. I've seen parents in Chamberlain's Bend drive forty minutes each way to a specialty program because the local school couldn't meet their child's needs. That kind of desperation is real, and the hope that comes with having options, that's real too.

Arkansas opened the door to about 220 private schools eligible for public money, up from around 100 just two years ago, plus another hundred or so microschools. And what does the state require of those schools? Fire drills. Immunization records. An American flag on a flagpole.

That's it.

No licensed teachers required. No curriculum review. No proof that anybody running the place knows what they're doing. Just a flagpole and a fire drill and the public's money.

Now, I've been through Arkansas once, on the way to somewhere else. I remember flat fields and a gas station where a man sold me a slice of pecan pie I still think about on cold mornings. I don't know the state well. But I know what happens when you loan the skillet without looking at the kitchen.

You remember the Lindqvist twins, up by the old creamery? They got into a feud back in '92 over a snowblower. I don't remember who started it, and I don't think they do either. But nobody stepped in. Nobody said, "Alright, you two, let's sort this out before it gets stupid." So it grew. And now they haven't spoken in thirty-three years, and half the town has taken sides, and nobody can even remember what the snowblower had to do with any of it.

That's what happens when there's no structure. Small problems become big ones.

A woman named Tracy Morrison opened a school in Arkansas called The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain. She presented herself as an expert in autism and ADHD. Parents of children with disabilities, desperate for help, put their faith in her. She told one family, "I am the best."

Video from inside that school shows a thirteen-year-old boy in a Mario shirt, sitting in the middle of a circle while Morrison hit him and encouraged other students to hit him and choke him. For forty minutes. Three other employees sat in the room and did nothing.

Morrison got thirty days in jail. She got to pick which jail. She's serving house arrest on her boyfriend's Missouri ranch, where she can ride horses. The school, now renamed North Star Academy, is still open. Still taking public money. Still serving children with disabilities.

I read that and thought about something Pastor Holmgren said once, when somebody asked why he bothers with the confirmation classes and the home visits and all the rest of it. He said, "If all I did was stand up front on Sunday and hope for the best, I'd be a motivational speaker, not a pastor. Structure isn't the enemy of faith. It's what keeps faith from spilling everywhere."

Arkansas kept the structure for public schools. They monitor those. They require documentation and standards and accountability. But private schools taking the same public money? A flagpole. A fire drill. A pat on the back.

The governor's office says student safety is the top priority. The education department says they intervene when needed. But a teacher who reported concerns never heard back. A parent who reported fraud never heard back. The state suspended funding to the Delta Institute for two days, then restored it because Morrison resigned as director and the school formed a new board. She was still running the place from jail, calling employees with to-do lists, but that was apparently close enough to fine.

There's a lesson here, and it's not a complicated one. Trust without verification isn't trust. It's wishful thinking, dressed up in good intentions and paid for with other people's money. You want to give families choices? Fine. But you have to make sure the choices aren't dangerous. You have to look at the kitchen before you loan out the skillet.

Otherwise you end up with a school that hurts children, a founder who rides horses on a Missouri ranch, and a system that keeps writing checks as if none of it happened.

One mother said her son has never recovered. He punches holes in walls now. Her daughter fell so far behind she had to repeat third grade. She said, "School is for helping, not for hurting."

Seems to me that ought to be the bare minimum. But the bare minimum requires somebody to check, and checking requires somebody to care, and caring requires admitting that good intentions aren't a substitute for oversight. They never were.

Aunt Vi could've told you that. She'd have told you that on a Tuesday, shelling peas, without even putting down the colander.

The skillet's a good one. Worth protecting. Worth asking a few questions before you hand it over.