In what must've come as a startling thunderclap to this state's education bureaucracy, a United States district judge here in Arkansas has issued an order that's been the longest time in coming: Forrest City's school district can't hold kids hostage in its failing schools any longer.
His Honor Billy Roy Wilson issued the order Monday. And tears of sorrow may have turned to tears of joy.
We remember the sad face of a mother named Erica Goodall in this very paper back in August when the Arkansas Board of Education denied her request to transfer two of her children out of Forrest City's schools and into the Palestine-Wheatley district. Somewhere, we hope, Erica Goodall is smiling after this latest ruling.
How awful of a school district, of an administration, of its bureaucracy, to use all means necessary--even the courts--to keep students down. Just because state money follows the students and that bureaucracy would lose some cash.
Oh, that's not how they put it, of course. We're under a deseg order! We can't allow a kid to leave! We'd violate a federal ruling!
No need to mention some of the deseg orders went back to the 1950s and were mostly forgotten about until somebody tried to take a few dollars out of district HQ. No need to mention that districts were using deseg orders--deseg orders!--to keep a lot of black kids from getting better educations in the next town. The Book says the love of money is the root of all evil, and it wasn't kidding, folks.
Now comes Judge Wilson--and with him common sense, honesty and maybe just plain human compassion. In the back-and-forth lawyering between school districts, he said in a ruling that the acceptance of "interdistrict transfers under the Arkansas statutes does not conflict with any desegregation order." Clear, concise, to the point. As a judge, he's also a fine writer.
Now, the ruling might only apply to Forrest City's kids at this point. So those of us who want to see real reform in Arkansas' schools might have to wait for more rulings. But this case could be what the lawyers call precedent.
What a great victory for not just public school choice in Arkansas, but for lower-income families who all too often find themselves in the worst schools. Not every kid is going to be saved by school choice, but a great many of them with caring parents will be. And that's just about the best society can do. The worst society can do is force kids into failing schools because of a line on a map. Which is what we've been doing.
And because of money, at that. Forrest City was suing other districts trying to recover $5 million that it said it would've received if 70 students hadn't left its academically distressed schools to get a better education. (Here's a question: If Forrest City didn't spend the money to educate those kids who left, where did it lose money?)
What, after all, was the rationale behind the school choice laws in Arkansas anyway? The state legislature passed such laws in 1989, 2004, 2013 and 2015, always trying to do right by the kids, but always getting in the way of districts that focus more on budgets than education. And always seem to find a reason not to follow the law.
As a prophet once said, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last. Here's hoping more families will be free after more judges see the light.
The history of failing public schools, not just in Arkansas but across America, is that they continue to operate and fail students year after year, generation after generation. Unlike charter schools that fail, traditional public schools rarely get shut down just because of a minor detail like whether they're actually educating anybody. Scholars, think tanks, policymakers and others have tried to find a solution to this problem, and many believe that school choice is the answer. (As if competition can make education better, the way it makes 'pert near everything else.) The theory being that if failing schools start losing kids, and continue to do so year after year, either they'll improve or they will close.
This is a matter of public school choice, remember, not private school choice. A ruling like Judge Wilson's simply allows a student to transfer from one public school to a better public school, even in the next school district. Advocates for public schools--we count ourselves in that number--cannot argue that school choice harms public education.
The Arkansas legislature has done its part. Families want to do theirs. It's now up to the courts, the board and commissioner of the state Department of Education, and the governor to enforce these laws to give kids--all kids, black and white, low-income and maybe not--a better chance at education.
Editorial on 12/13/2015