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The e-Stem charter schools in the old Gazette building open tomorrow -- 7:30 a.m. for elementary and 8 for middle and high schools. I expect first-day traffic, along with the new traffic patterns (two-way on Louisiana) might create a little confusion. Downtown workers, you've been notified.

The Downtown Partnership plans to have members standing on street corners welcoming the new students and staff to downtown. New life in the neighborhod and all.

A retired school teacher writes to ask if the Downtown Partnership ever stood on corners to welcome kids to Carver, King, Rockefeller, etc.

Speaking of schools: The NY Times magazine today has an interesting article on how Louisville is coping with the Supreme Court decision ending the use of race as a sole determinant of school assignments. The city is combining race along with economics of families to draw assignment plans. Interesting information in the article about the one sure strategy for education achievement -- put kinds in a school with a majority of middle income or better kids and all will advance, regardless of race or economics. The problem comes, of course, when a school district's enrollments doesn't provide enough middle class kids to spread around. Thus, when you see charter schools such as the LISA and A-Plus schools do well, it's not particularly surprising given their demographic makeup. That's not the case on the KIPP schools, though they still enjoy the solid benefit of motivated parents who have self-selected a school with some significant expectations for parents as well as students.

We don't know anything yet about the e-Stem enrollment demographics because -- despite significant expenditures of public money in the process that led to its approval for millions in state funding -- its leaders have stuck with the fiction that they are private insofar as their records are concerned until the first state check is cut. I'm interested, since the school has a waiting list in some grades, how choices were made on which students were enrolled.

That logo above? Toss it.

The hordes who follow my column know how happy I was to read today that the University of Arkansas Razorbacks' new athletic director Jeff Long has decided that all university athletes are now Razorbacks -- not Razorbacks and Lady 'Backs.

I wrote a column in June about the dying practice of demeaning female athletes with the "Lady" label. I noted the national trend and commented, based on some whispers I'd heard at the time:

Since then, with the retirement of long-time athletic director Frank Broyles (a frequent critic of the federal law that required equal treatment of male and female athletics), the UA has merged the men's and women's athletic departments. So far, Razorback women are still Lady ‘Backs, but new athletic director Jeff Long has had bigger fish to fry. Perhaps he'll eventually retire the second-class identification tool.

A month later and it's done. One small additional hat tip. The D-G's account mentioned practices of other Arkansas colleges. It failed to credit UCA for deciding names on a team-by-team basis. Some have already dropped the ultra-demeaning Sugar Bears name. More are expected to follow. As I mentioned in the column, it seems likely that Lady Red Wolves are not in the cards for the newly renamed Arkansas State teams, either.

Wally Hall is grumbling about it. But the notion that this change creates any problems for newspapers is silly. Some sports are only played by one gender or another. In the others, you need only once insert in a handy place that it is men's or women's basketball (baseball, track, etc.) and you're done. That's how they do it in the Olympics. We don't have U.S. athletes and Lady U.S. athletes. We have U.S. athletes. Works fine.

We're all Razorbacks today. Three cheers.

A frequent argument in the debate over predatory payday lenders is that banks get away with the same predatory practices through the likes of overdraft fees. No doubt about that. It just so happens that between court precedent and national legislation, there's no clear line of legal attack on the fees here.

But, you might be interested to know, that a group interested in consumer lending has targeted the fees and it has some support in Congress to do something about a variety of punishing bank practices, from predatory overdraft fees to manipulation of the order of withdrawals in ways that harm consumers and hidden ATM charges. Pass legislation over  the bank lobby? Don't hold your breath.

Channel 7 plans a report Monday night apparently on cell phone use in the Little Rock School District. Notice of that to School Board members says:

The Ch. 7 story on district cell phones is expected to air Monday night (July 21) at 10 pm. The story is investigating cell phone usage by employees during work hours and that cost to the district. Darral Paradis has been very alert to this issue since last August when he found that the district would be best served if the number of pool minutes were increased in order to save money. He has also continued to work with Alltel to end access to text messaging and internet services on basic plans and phones. The district will present a revised board policy to address the appropriate use of cell phones by employees at this month’s board meeting. The revision to this policy has been in play since late winter/early spring.

A little outside interest is always valuable in government operations. As I've mentioned before, it would be interesting to get a comprhensive feel for city, county and state agency use of cell phones (plus text, plus Internet) and how that compares with phone costs back in the Jurassic age of landline telephones.