LITTLE ROCK — At least 106 of Arkansas’ 134 state lawmakers say they have a bachelor’s degree, a number that significantly exceeds what was in a national report that said Arkansas had the least-educated legislature in the county.
The Chronicle of Higher Education report said that only 60 percent of the state’s lawmakers had college degrees.
A survey of the legislators by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette found that 79 percent said they have degrees.
The Democrat-Gazette reached 131 of Arkansas’ 134 lawmakers (one of the 100House seats is vacant). Reps. Nate Bell, R-Mena; Josh Johnston, R-Rose Bud; and Bubba Powers, D-Hope, did not return calls and e-mails seeking their educational history.
The Chronicle said 25 percent of Arkansas lawmakers attended no college, 6 percent completed some college, 35 percent earned bachelor’s degrees and 25 percent earned higher degrees. The report provides no information for the other 9 percent. It said that figures may not add to 100 percent because of rounding and because some lawmakers’ education was unknown.
The Democrat-Gazette survey found that only 6 percent (eight people) said they had attended no college and 12.7 percent (17 people) said they had worked toward a degree but did not finish. The survey also found that 79 percent (106 lawmakers) earned an undergraduate degree and 38 percent (51 legislators) said they had received a master’s degree in subjects ranging from agricultural education at Arkansas State University (Rep. James Ratliff, D-Imboden) to a master’s of forestry from Yale University (Rep. Bruce Westerman, RHot Springs).
Nationally, The Chronicle said, only 9 percent of the country’s 7,400 legislators have no college experience and 11 percent have some. It said that 34 percent have bachelor’s degrees and 41 percent have higher degrees.
The Chronicle’s report rested on data from a website where some legislators report some data on a voluntary basis. Others don’t report on the site, and some ignore certain categories, such as education history. The Chronicle acknowledged where its information came from and that it was in some respects incomplete.
Chronicle reporter Eric Kelderman said the discrepancy was due to the large number of lawmakers cited in the report and the reliance on a website where it’s up to legislators to submit biographical information.
“When you look at the scope of what we did, we looked at 7,400 lawmakers across the country. It’s a huge undertaking for one organization,” Kelderman said by phone Friday. “Obviously there’s going be disparities with self-reported data.”
Kelderman said the report was meant to be a broad overview of the education level of people who write laws.
“It’s a snapshot. It wasn’t necessarily supposed to be definitive,” Kelderman said. “Somebody was going to be on the bottom, somebody was going” to be mad.
The Chronicle got data from research group Project Vote Smart. The Philipsburg, Mont.-based nonprofit obtained information about lawmakers through biographical surveys of legislators or campaign literature, according to The Chronicle.
The information on the Project Vote Smart websiteis not complete, listing some Arkansas legislators who have law degrees as not having any higher education. Many of the state’s 60 freshman lawmakers have empty education entries in the data posted on that website, as do some longtime legislators.
Sixty of the 134 Arkansas lawmakers have no information in Vote Smart’s education entry.
Chronicle reporter Alex Richards, who helped compile the data, told the Democrat-Gazette on Monday that he and other researchers supplemented the information on Project Vote Smart’s website with data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, social media and campaign material. He said the Arkansas information was particularly hard to gather from those sources.
Some lawmakers said they had been contacted by the researchers.
Based in Washington, D.C., The Chronicle is mainly for college and university faculty members and administrators.
Legislative staff members do not keep track of lawmakers’ education levels.
Lawmakers have the option of including educational history on the biography they complete when they are elected. Many do not.
Consistent educational information is not available on the Legislature’s website.
LEADERSHIP
Most of the lawmakers currently in legislative leadership positions have a degree.
House Speaker Robert S. Moore Jr., D-Arkansas City, has a law degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and Senate President Pro Tempore Paul Bookout, D-Jonesboro, has a bachelor’s degree in political science from ASU.
House Democratic Leader Rep. Johnnie Roebuck, D-Arkadelphia, has a doctorate of education from UA.
The only member of the current House and Senate leadership without a degreeis Rep. Bobby Pierce, DSheridan, the House speaker pro tempore, who said he did not go to college.
If he is re-elected in 2012, the incoming Senate leader will not have a degree. Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, is an independent insurance agentand is chairman of the Senate Tax Committee.
He said not having a degree has not held him back as a lawmaker. He said he has “quite a bit” of college credit but not a degree.
“I’ve been making my way a long time without a degree and will just continue struggling on,” Teague said by phone Friday. “I wish I had a degree sometimes.”
The position is called the Senate president pro tempore.
FINISHING UP
Teague won’t be the first top legislative leader without a degree.
Former House Speaker Bill Stovall said he occasionally felt intimidated being the only person in the room without a college degree. He had completed 23 credits at Arkansas Tech in 1979 and 1980.
“After I was elected speaker-designate in 2003, I continually found myself in meetings with the governor, the speaker, the president pro tempore of the Senate and other very well-respected members of the General Assembly. ... I continually identified myself as the only noncollege graduate in the room and it grew on me, it irritated me to the point of having to hide my intimidation,” Stovall said. “I just made a commitment to myself that I’d put it behind me.”
Stovall said not having a degree caused him to work hard so people would overlook the fact that he did not finish college. He said it also made him focus on making it easier and more affordable to go to college.
Stovall was speaker in 2005 and 2006. He was first elected in 2000.
Stovall completed his bachelor’s in political science with a minor in history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in May.
Now the House chief of staff, he’s pursuing a master’s degree.
Rep. Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock, took online classes during the legislative session and is about halfway done with his bachelor’s degree in business at ASU.
“This is something I’ve kept pretty personal. This is not something that’s going to help me in my career, or in my ledge career. This is finishing something I started,” Hyde said. “It’s just meeting an old goal, a very, very old goal.”
He is chairman of the House Management Committee.
Hyde, who owns a commercial building company,said he wanted to set an example for his five grandchildren, the oldest of whom is 12.
“It’s always been a goal, but I’ve been busy building a business and busy raising a family,” Hyde said.
Rep. Allen Kerr, R-Little Rock, said not having a degree can mean fellow lawmakers look at him differently.
Kerr dropped out of college to run the family business and take care of his mother and siblings when his father died.
He said he first felt a stigma for not having a degree while in the Legislature when he met with the House speaker as a freshman lawmaker.
“I saw his attitude change as soon as I told him I didn’t have a degree,” Kerr said.
WHAT ELSE?
The Democrat-Gazette survey also found that most Arkansas lawmakers got their undergraduate degree at a college or university in the state.
The three most-popular colleges for Arkansas lawmakers’ undergraduate degrees were UA-Fayetteville, 21 people; Arkansas Tech, 11; and ASU, eight.
Five lawmakers each earned undergraduate degrees at Southern Arkansas University, Ouachita Baptist University and Hendrix.
UA-Fayetteville was also the most-popular place to get a master’s degree, 18 people, with UALR second with six people.
Sixteen lawmakers have a law degree, including five from UALR and eight from UA-Fayetteville.
Four lawmakers, including Roebuck, said they had a doctorate. The others are Rep. Billy Gaskill, D-Paragould; Rep. Les Carnine, R-Rogers; and Rep. Hank Wilkins, DPine Bluff.
Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, is in the process of finishing a doctorate in public health at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/19/2011