Charter schools don't violate desegregation agreement, judge says

— U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said in an order Thursday that the establishment of charter schools in Pulaski County did not violate the 1989 Pulaski County school desegregation case.

The judge also issued a separate order saying a hearing is needed to decide whether the state should be released from the 1989 settlement agreement that obligates the state to make millions of dollars in annual payments to the three Pulaski County school districts.

The 30-page ruling on the judge's decision on the charter schools cited a number of factors. They included that the motions by the Little Rock School District and Joshua intervenors failed in part due to the fact that "no reasonable fact finder could conclude that the State is in material breach of the parties' 1989 Settlement Agreement as to open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County."

"The cumulative effect of open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County on the stipulation magnet schools and M-to-M [majority-to-minority] transfers has not, as a matter of law, substantially defeated the relevant purposes of the 1989 Settlement Agreement, the magnet stipulation, or the M-to-M stipulation," Judge Marshall, Jr. wrote.

Read more about this story in tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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