Pre-Thanksgiving Meetings On Education At State Capitol

The House majority leader is preparing to pitch his middle-of-the-road approach to overhauling public education. He wants colleagues to back his plan on how to best implement court-ordered school reforms. Representative Harmon Seawel`s turn comes tomorrow at a pre-Thanksgiving meeting of the House and Senate education committees. The panels have been meeting jointly for weeks reviewing education proposals without reaching agreement on a plan to meet a state Supreme Court-imposed January first deadline to reform a system that the high court declared unconstitutional in November 2002. The ruling came down more than a year ago, and legislators are two weeks from the start of a likely special session. They remain torn between consolidating small school districts to better afford costly reforms and sharply raising taxes to pay for improvements in all 308 districts. Huckabee`s office says the governor may not call the special session if it does not look like a plan will be approved.