A low-income school district sues the state because of its uneven school-funding system. The court rules the system unconstitutional and gives lawmakers about a year to fix it. Several groups come up with plans, as does the governor. But the groups can't agree. Passionate debates ensue.

Sound familiar? It's not New Hampshire's fabled - and ongoing - Claremont case. It's a case called Lake View, named after the tiny Arkansas district that filed it, and it came to a head during Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's term as Arkansas governor in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Huckabee has one of the richest education-policy records of all the Republican candidates. In addition to the Lake View case, he implemented plans similar to No Child Left Behind that emphasized the basics of reading and math - and contributed to a rise in student test scores. He also pushed for charter schools and teacher pay raises, as well as a stricter high school curriculum.

Huckabee became the first Republican yesterday to be endorsed by the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association. In a short press conference, President Rhonda Wesolowski lauded Huckabee's opposition to school vouchers and his commitment to arts and music education.

But Huckabee also favors "testing teachers" and replacing those who do not meet established standards. The NEA has been critical of the practice, as well as the federal No Child Left Behind law, parts of which Huckabee supports.

Still, Wesolowski said NEA-New Hampshire liked that Huckabee favors measuring student growth over time as opposed to judging a teacher's effectiveness by how students score on a single test. She said the group didn't ask Huckabee much about No Child Left Behind, since he wasn't a member of the Congress that passed the law. Huckabee, who backed President Bush in 2004, initially supported it.

Huckabee was the only Republican presidential candidate to meet with NEA-New Hampshire, Wesolowski said. In 2004, the 16,000-member organization endorsed its first candidate: Democrat Howard Dean. This year, it chose two, one from each party: Huckabee and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Huckabee was also the only Republican to address the national NEA's yearly convention this past July. He started his speech there with one of his signature jokes: Huckabee said having a Republican at the NEA convention "is about as out of place as Michael Moore going to the NRA convention."

Huckabee went on to tout his record. It's one that many educators may find appealing but that some in his own party do not. He's been attacked by opponents for raising taxes to pay for schools and for trying to provide college scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. Conservative groups have called Huckabee a "big government Republican" and "pro-life liberal" for his education policies.

While Huckabee has gone on the defensive about his tax record, he's held fast when it comes to his education record. Here are some highlights from his 10½ years as governor of Arkansas.

• In 1997, a year after becoming governor, Huckabee signed legislation that created a clearinghouse at the state Department of Education where schools could get information about character education.

• In 1998, Huckabee announced a new program called Smart Start. Its aim was to emphasize reading and math in kindergarten through fourth grade, and its tenets were similar to No Child Left Behind, which would come four years later: high educational standards, staff development, student testing, and a system of rewards and sanctions for schools.

• He later introduced Smart Step, for fifth- through eighth-graders, and Next Step, for high school.

• In 2001, Huckabee pushed for a law that mandated elementary students be provided 40 minutes per week of arts and music instruction. In 2005, the law bumped the mandate up to an hour. (next page »)