LITTLE ROCK — U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller stunned parties in the 28-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit Thursday by releasing the state from its obligation to pay for desegregation efforts in the three school systems - except for the majority-to-minority interdistrict student-transfer program.
The judge ordered the end to the bulk of extra state aid to the districts - which totals nearly $70 million a year - ina 110-page, sharply worded order in which he found the North Little Rock School District to be unitary, or in substantial compliance with its desegregation plan, in eight of nine areas. District staffing was the exception.
Miller also ruled that while the Pulaski County Special district is unitary in three areas, it is not in compliance in nine other areas such as student assignment to schools, student discipline practices, staffing, and student achievement. As a result, the Pulaski County Special district will remain under federal court monitoring for at least four more years, according to the order.
The judge’s order - which prompted questions about budget cuts and employee layoffs in the districts and the loss of Little Rock’s six original magnet schools - was issued in response to court hearingsin early 2010 on the Pulaski County Special and North Little Rock districts’ requests to be released from federal court monitoring of desegregation efforts.
Miller wrote that, after listening to hours of testimony and reading thousands of pages of court submissions, it became clear to him that the state’s payments to the districts had become a reward for poor performance.
“The problem with this process is that it results in an absurd outcome in which the districts are rewarded with extra money from the state if they fail to comply with their desegregation plans and they face having their funds cut by the state if they act in good faith and comply,” Miller wrote.
“It seems that the State of Arkansas is using a carrot and stick approach with these districts but that the districts are wise mules that have learned how to eat the carrot and sit down on the job,” Miller continued. “The time has finally come for all carrots to be put away. These mules must now either pull their proverbial carts on their own or face a very heavy and punitive stick.”
But Miller also said that he has no sympathy for the state having to make desegregation payments nor is he giving the state any credit or “brownie points” for making those payments.
That total, paid to the districts since 1989, exceeds $1 billion.
“It must be clear that the state of Arkansas has unclean hands,” Miller wrote. “Its history is steeped in segregation of schools as well as other public accommodations.”
He added later: “Notwithstanding these points, this court is confronted with determining the most prudent course that must be taken to assure that these districts desegregate. And, it seems that it is time to move in a different direction; toward punishing dilatory behavior and away from rewarding it.”
VARIED REACTION
Miller issued the ruling just before 3 p.m. Thursday. Reaction ran the gamut with state representatives - who have called in recent years for at least the phaseout of the desegregation payments - welcoming the order and school district representatives expressing dismay about the potential disruptive loss of the money.
John Walker, an attorney for the Joshua intervenors, who are black students in the three districts, was pleased with at least parts of the order that keep the North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special districts under court scrutiny and said the cutbacks in state money will force the districts to focus their more limited resources on their “neediest” students.
“I was never one to say they could take the desegregation money and do what they wanted to do with it,” Walker said about the three districts’ spending. “That’s what the court said - it wasn’t focused; it wasn’t purposeful.”
Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, said the governor will talk with state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell about how best to carry out Miller’s order.
“We are pleased with the ruling, and it is evident that Judge Miller shares our view that it is time to end this cycle of desegregation payments that do not produce their desired results,” DeCample said.
McDaniel noted in a prepared statement that the ruling has “critical implications” for Pulaski County students and state taxpayers. He said he would continue to be focused on the educational needs of students in the districts and work to ensure that the districts remain solvent.
“The Court has recognized that we must change a broken system in order to better serve our children,” McDaniel said. “I am committed to working with the districts, the Governor, and the Department of Education to ensure the fiscal stability of these districts and a quality education for their students.”
Chris Heller, an attorney for the Little Rock School District, which has already been declared unitary but continues to receive state desegregation aid and participate in the magnet school and interdistrict transfer programs, told the Little Rock School Board on Thursday that the order creates “an emergency situation” for the district and for families of students who plan to attend magnet schools next year.
Heller said he anticipates filing a motion as soon as today asking Miller to clarify his order on state desegregation funding so the district can decide what, if any, further steps need to be taken.
Heller said that no parties in the case asked the judge to decide whether to discontinue the state funding and there was no court hearing to present evidence and arguments to the judge about it. He said Miller did not give the parties notice that he intended to decide the funding issues. Instead, at the 2010 court hearings on unitary status, Heller said, attorneys were told that the issue of continued state funding would be the subject of a later court hearing.
The Little Rock School District receives about $38 million of the $70 million in annual desegregation aid paid to the three districts.
Stephen Jones, an attorney for the North Little Rock School District, said he was gratified that the 9,000-student district was found unitary in most areas of its operations but said he anticipates that the order will be appealed by one or more of the parties in the case.
Sam Jones, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, said he was surprised and disappointed by the order and that, “in certain respects, the order raises more questions than it answers.”
INTERDISTRICT TRANSFERS
In his order, Miller specifically preserved state funding only for the majority-to-minority interdistrict student-transfer program. But he directed attorneys for the parties to submit to him within 30 days legal briefs explaining why the transfer program shouldn’t also be cut.
A total of 1,916 students are participants this school year in the majority-to-minority transfer program in which a student in a school district in which his race is in the majority can choose to transfer to another district and school where the student’s race is in the minority.
Each of the three districts receives state funding for the students that transfer into their districts. Each of the districts also receives state funding - a lesser amount that is considered an incentive to participate - for the students who live in their districts but opt to transfer to one of the other districts in the county. The state also pays for bus transportation for those students.
Clinton and Crystal Hill Magnet Elementary Schools in the Pulaski County Special district are examples of schools with large numbers of interdistrict-transfer students.
The judge didn’t mention the Little Rock’s six original special-program magnet schools, which also constitute an interdistrict-transfer program.
The magnet schools are funded by all three school districts and the state for students from the three Pulaski County districts. Those schools are Booker, Carver, Gibbs and Williams elementary schools; Horace Mann Middle; and Parkview High schools.
Currently, 3,670 students are enrolled in the six original magnet schools.
The judge also didn’t mention the teacher retirement and health insurance aid the three districts receive as the result of a long-ago order in the desegregation lawsuit. The money isn’t used for desegregation efforts but it was awarded to the districts as part of the desegregation case, causing attorneys to wonder Thursday if the retirement and health insurance will be included in the funding to be terminated.
In Little Rock alone, the teacher retirement and health insurance aid from the state is more than $14 million.
NO MAGIC SPELL
Miller, who took over as presiding judge in the case in 2009, said that “desegregation now seems to mean racial equity in education” or the notion that the schools that black children attend should have the same facilities, quality of instruction and quality of extracurricular programs as schools attended by white children.
He said it appeared to him that few if any of the participants in the case “have any clue how to effectively educate underprivileged black children.” He said some participants in the desegregation case seem to believe there is a “magic spell that will do the trick, such as some special racially based formula or program.
“Even more concerning, however, is that it seems that some of the participants do not really care,” he said.
Miller criticized some of the witnesses and evidence presented to him last year, saying that some testimony was not relevant, or it was based on flawed logic, or that it was “appalling.”
He said some of the witnesses viewed the judge’s role as that of the innkeeper in The Canterbury Tales who had the job of determining which of the travelers at his inn told the best story.
Miller cited court testimony about seemingly unfair differences in pay for basketball and football coaches, which he said was an inaccurate analysis because football coaches are required to work during the summer and their contracts reflect that extra time.
“This truth, however, did not stop minute after grueling minute of mindless testimony about the injustice suffered by the basketball coach,” Miller wrote.
He also called attention to a witness who said teachers let their students “rap” in class as a way to promote reading and speaking English correctly.
“Although, at first blush, it might seem understandable for this witness to assume that a middle aged black judge would find this appealing, that presumption is simply untrue,” wrote Miller, who is black and said that doing rap does not necessarily lead to literacy or speaking correctly.
Regarding unitary status in North Little Rock, Miller released the district from court supervision in the areas of special education; compensatory education; compensatory programs aided at dropout prevention; extracurricular activities; discipline, expulsions and suspensions; secondary gifted education; school construction and facilities; and desegregation monitoring.
He denied it in the area of staffing, which called for increasing the number of black teachers, principals and administrators. He said the number of black employees had decreased from 20 percent in 1984-85 to 14.5 percent in 2009-10.
He said the district did not adequately document its efforts to recruit black staff and must do so for the next two years before he will reconsider releasing the district.
Miller was more critical of the Pulaski County Special district.
“In listening to Pulaski County’s witnesses, it seems that Pulaski County has given very little thought, and even less effort, to complying with its desegregation plan,” Miller wrote. “Complying with its plan obligations seems to have been an afterthought. Additionally, Pulaski County is an unwieldy district. It covers a large amount of area and has schools located in various towns that seem at odds with one another.”
The Pulaski County Special district was released from court supervision in the areas of interdistrict schools, multicultural education and school resources. The district’s petition for unitary status was denied in the areas of student assignment; advanced placement and gifted education programs; student discipline; school facilities; scholarships; special education; staffing; student achievement; and desegregation monitoring.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/20/2011