"After more than 50 years, desegregation still an issue in Ark.; 3 school districts, state at odds over payments" by Nomaan Merchant, Associated Press / September 18, 2011
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - More than a half-century after federal troops escorted nine black students into an all-white school, efforts to desegregate Little Rock’s classrooms are at another turning point.
The state wants to end its long-running payments for desegregation programs, but three school districts that receive the money say they need it to continue key programs. And a federal judge has accused the schools of delaying desegregation so they can keep receiving an annual infusion of $70 million.
A federal appeals court will hear arguments tomorrow from both sides. The judges are expected to decide eventually whether Arkansas still has to make the payments and whether two of the districts should remain under court supervision.
The schools, which serve about 50,000 students, have come a long way since 1957, when the governor and hundreds of protesters famously tried to stop the Little Rock Nine from entering Central High School. But thousands of white and black children still have to be bused to different neighborhoods every day under one of the nation’s largest remaining court-ordered desegregation systems.
The districts argue that desegregation should be about giving parents options between good schools, not strictly counting the number of white and black students....
The battle over school desegregation persisted for decades after the civil rights movement. In 1982, the city schools sued two neighboring districts and the state for not doing enough to help with desegregation.
Two years later, a federal judge ruled that those districts had wrongfully separated white and black students. In 1989, the schools and the state reached a settlement that required large payments to the Little Rock, North Little Rock, and Pulaski County districts. It is still in effect.
Some Little Rock schools remain as segregated as the neighborhoods around them. And achieving racial balance is becoming more difficult as families leave the suburbs that supply white students to schools in majority-black city neighborhoods.
The settlement did establish popular magnet schools in urban Little Rock, but the money has also been a source of controversy. District administrators have fought over how to spend it.
State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has alleged that the districts use desegregation funding elsewhere in their budgets.
In May, a federal judge accused the North Little Rock and Pulaski County districts of delaying desegregation to keep getting state money.
US District Judge Brian Miller pointed to problems with student achievement and discipline, particularly in Pulaski County, a suburban district that takes in black students from Little Rock and North Little Rock and sends white children to both.
Margie Powell, head of the court-appointed Office of Desegregation Monitoring, said the districts “got addicted to the money’’ rather than finding ways to pay for magnet schools and transfers on their own.
“I certainly understand their fear,’’ Powell said. “But years ago, we told them, ‘You guys need to start thinking about . . . how you’re going to survive without ‘deseg’ money.’ ’’
District leaders said they can’t support the same programs without help.
“We need the money,’’ Acklin said, explaining that it pays for initiatives that government monitors have said must be done “to balance the playing field.’’
Many parents have stayed in Little Rock because of the district’s six well-regarded magnet schools. But Miller’s ruling could change that. District officials have warned of possible cutbacks and teacher layoffs, although it’s unlikely that any magnet schools would be closed if the payments are cut off.
Even if the federal appeals court overrules Miller and keeps the state’s payments in place, it is not clear how long the payments - and the system they support - will last.
After decades of issuing court orders, judges across the country have shown in recent years that they want to get out of school desegregation, said Wendy Parker, a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
In other cities with schools that were desegregated by court order, the classrooms eventually went back to reflecting the segregated neighborhoods around them, she said.
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