This is all occurring with some regularity. The latest story said this time it's an appeals court that has decided to keep kids from transferring to better schools. Apparently a handful of school districts in Arkansas have company in keeping kids right where they are. Judicial company.
What, did lawmakers really think they could change the law to make it easier for children to go to better schools? Oh, the stumps in the education bureaucracy can't be dug up that easily. Just because the law says something doesn't mean there aren't ways around it.
You might remember that in the last few years the Arkansas Legislature finally decided to make it easier for kids to escape their (sometimes failing) school districts. Lawmakers created the Public School Choice Act in 2013, and amended it earlier this year, that allows kids to transfer out of their school districts. That is, unless those school districts can provide federal court paperwork--deseg orders, deseg plans, that sort of thing--that prevents those transfers.
The districts have been coming up with paperwork, all right. Including, in some cases, waving around court documents from the 1950s, which might have nothing at all to do with anything going on today. See the Dollarway School District for bad, but not the only, example.
This week, the farce continued.
A group of parents wanted to have their children within the Blytheville School District's boundaries attend schools down the road. But the local school board said, in a resolution, that it would be exempt from all that, thank you. (Most folks in education know that state dollars follow the kids, and allowing some to transfer out of a district would mean less dollars for that district.)
So the parents fought for their kids. They went to court. And a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled 2-1 in favor of . . . the school district.
Disappointing and discouraging doesn't quite capture it. How about shameful instead?
Even one of the judges on the 8th Circuit noted that Blytheville's desegregation case closed in December of 1978. State law says that school districts that deny transfers must submit proof of a Genuine Conflict from a federal court. If propping up your case on a deseg case that was closed in 1978 is a Genuine Conflict, what would harmful shenanigans be?
Keep fighting, parents. You might find common sense in some courtroom yet. Your kids are certainly worth the fight.
The same day the story came out saying it was okay for the Blytheville School District to opt out of the state school transfer law, another story appeared on the Front Page of your statewide paper.
That headline read:
46 Arkansas schools
earn bottom 5% tag
The state had identified the lowest-performing schools, those scoring in the bottom 5 percent on state tests over the last three years. And our high-speed reporters and editors in the newsroom printed a graphic accompanying the story.
If you ran your finger down the column, you'd note the usual suspects, a few inner-city schools, and a few rural campuses, and . . . .
Blytheville Middle School.
And Blytheville High.
Can you imagine why some parents in Blytheville would rather their kids go elsewhere?
The school district, however, would rather keep its kids--all its kids--right where they are. No matter the consequences for those kids later. Now the school district has company. Judicial company.
Here's hoping the full court gets a shot at setting things right.
Editorial on 09/03/2015