Friday, December 30, 2011
Little Rock Schools Charter schools allowed to intervene in deseg case
Posted by Max Brantley on Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Yesterday came a measured ruling from Judge D. Price Marshall, who has inherited the aging legal dinosaur. He has allowed Pulaski charter schools to intervene, on narrow grounds, in the Little Rock School District's pleading that the state of Arkansas has broken its 1989 desegregation commitment by insufficient attention to segregation caused by creation of open enrollment charter schools in the county. The charters have been particularly damaging to the magnet and interdistrict transfer programs the state agreed to finance and encourage in settling the case in 1989.
Judge Marshall recognized the charters' obvious relevance. But he's not going to allow the charter schools to attempt to relitigate the 1989 desegregation settlement 22 years later. He will not allow them to attempt to undo racial enrollment goals established before the Republican-led Supreme Court decided the United States had become color-blind and race no longer was a permissible factor to consider in school assignment. Opening this litigation foray would have added years and years to the case. I'm sure the anti-LRSD crowd would have missed the irony of a huge increase in litigation prompted by people who love to complain about the federal lawsuit.
Here's Judge Marshall's ruling.
As I've said before, the Little Rock School District has much merit in its argument, particularly in the early days of charter school approval in Pulaski County. But this issue isn't all about race and I think a settlement could address money, school boundaries and charter concerns — with some give and take by all parties. Read on if you're a school wonk:
The Huckabee-era state Board of Education was so beholden to the big money behind charter school creation that it approved them without a thought to their demonstration that they would supply unprovided education (a requirement of state law) and without a followup thought to whether they had met the promises they made in their establishment. New state board members have tightened state oversight of charters significantly.
Little Rock might, however, have waited too long to bring this challenge. Some of the worst offenses were in the very beginning. For example, the majority white non-black LISA Academy was set up in upscale western Little Rock. Its organizers created a majority white, majority middle class school seemingly intended — based on comments by some school organizers at the time — in part to avoid what they saw as an undesirable element in the Little Rock schools. LISA certainly couldn't prove they provided math and science instruction unavailable in the Little Rock District, with its historically high-achieving science and math offerings.
It was the same with the Academics Plus school in Maumelle, nominally designed to reach disadvantaged and minority children. They never met that target and became, first, a neighborhood school option for Maumelle residents who didn't much like the Pulaski County School District — this was before construction of two new schools there in recent years.
eStem, the Walton- and Hussman-backed charter school is making most of the noise about the Little Rock School District. This is the outfit that hired the failed Little Rock Superintendent Roy Brooks to serve as a bloody shirt for the anti-LRSD forces to wave, then sacked him after he'd served his PR purpose. To its credit, it has attempted to bring minority students into its mix on its downtown campus, but the overall numbers tell the diversity story that persists as a community-wide education issue.
The Little Rock School District is 67 percent black and 71 percent of its students qualify, on account of family poverty, for free or reduced-price lunches. Academics Plus is 19 percent black and 33 percent school lunch; LISA is 37 percent black and 35 percent free lunch; eStem is 47 percent black and 32 percent free lunch. In short, Little Rock is much blacker and much poorer than these paragon charters. A number of minority black charters have been established. They've been fraught with problems and generally replicate the Little Rock, state and national experience — poor students have a hard time closing the achievement gap. All these charters had shortcomings this year in meeting annual yearly progress as measured by the rising standards on standardized tests.
So, while the charter schools desperately want to take race off the table in Pulaski County to preserve the strong white enrollments that make the schools attractive to some parents, the elephant in the room is the low-income student. Poverty is the great determinant on education performance. The fewer poor students the charters — or any schools — have, the more likely they are to succeed. Again, take a look at the No Child Left Behind figures for the charters in Arkansas. Where they fail to meet targets — just as many public school districts fail — it is most often with poor and minority students. Compare apples to apples and you have a hard time finding outliers in school performance anywhere in the country.
But let's have these arguments in court by all means. And let's take a long look at what "success" means in the charter schools to the big-shot legal mouthpieces intent on tearing down every fiber of the Little Rock School District, despite its many bright spots amid the acknowledged failures. Does it mean they've succeeded in educating well-off white students? Big deal.
Even if the law dictates the state can't be hindered by racial considerations in pouring public tax money into creating duplicative administrative school units in Pulaski County, let's do consider income in the state's obligations. Let's have the judge consider whether it's a fair game to let schools with unforgiving standards — students and parents must meet homework, classwork and attendance contracts, plus extended school days, or they can be thrown out — be given the advantage of disproportionate enrollments of advantaged kids. Give me a big enough head start and I can win a 100-yard-dash race, too.
Opening the charter school door to intervention might not be a happy day for the state, by the way. It and the charter schools have been fighting release of charter school data (particularly about where students have come from) under specious privacy grounds. A thoughtful federal judge, which Judge Marshall clearly is, can figure out a way for full access to ALL public school data — charter and conventional — without compromising an individual student's privacy.
All of that said: I still think it's time for a settlement although parties with widely divergent aims would have to make significant compromises. The three Pulaski school districts and the state can work a phase-out of payments. But it probably should include some, if not unlimited, continuing financial commitment to magnet schools. This workout might include a restructuring of school district lines to eradicate the Pulaski district and create a Jacksonville school district. This is a hot political potato, but it neatly solves a huge problem. The Pulaski district, a misshapen oddity of history and disaparate constituencies, is currently under state trusteeship and far short of reaching desegregated status. Let's disappear it.
A settlement might also include some commitments by the state to be sensitive to improper aims in charter school creation — particularly creation of havens of privilege that guarantee the worst possible student makeup of schools left behind. In the future, the Supreme Court perhaps has made racial considerations impossible. But it has not made it impossible to consider students' economic background. That's the groundbreaking approach taken in Wake County, North Carolina, and it has merit here. Let's not allow some the benefit of exposure to all economic classes, while segregating have-nots in education ghettos.
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Comments (18)
Showing 1-18 of 18
Uh, Max? The "majority-white" Lisa Academy is in actuality 31.6% white. Oops.
And it is particularly galling to hear you complain about "havens of privilege", seeing as how your own kids were beneficiaries of LRSD's own havens of privilege. Do you really think it is a coincidence that LRSD has gerrymandered the attendance zone of Central HS to include the wealthiest, most exclusive neighborhoods in town (including your own)? If you had raised your kids soutwest of I-630 & University, where it's the luck of the draw whether your kids win a spot in a good magnet school or get condemned to the resident school, perhaps you would feel a little differently about charters.
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"The Little Rock School District is 67 percent black . . ."
And what is the percentage at Central High?
And what is the percentage in Central High's AP classes?
Thank you, Max, for continuing to be a source (indeed, perhaps the only local news source) for clear, detailed information about the deseg case. This in spite of the fact that sometimes only a few people comment here on the blog. I appreciate you!
You can check school enrollments yourself, here
http://adedata.arkansas.gov/statewide/Scho…
The LISA schools have 220 black students in a total population of 599. That's the relevant population for court consideration. LISA -- part of a national network of schools begun by Turkish educators -- has 139 Asian and 43 Hispanic students. It also has 189 white students.
I'll save you the lookup, Doc, Central High is 54 percent black (or 34 percent white to use schoolguy's preferred formula). I have no idea on AP, though I'd be willing to guess the courses are disproportionally white. What that has to do with anything, I'm unsure. Central is also a magnet school open to students city and countywide. Since you bring my family into it, it's my duty to report that my son failed three years running to draw into Parkview and attended Central as a second choice. "Haven of privilege" is not a descriptive I've heard used often by those who run it down and who have told me, among others, they fear the neighborhood, the sheer size of the school, the background of many of the children who attend there and much more. It's a daunting place on size alone, not everyone's cup of tea. Thanks to good principals and teachers, it's earned a reputation as a public school with good advanced courses. I'm happy they've kept many middle class kids -- black and white -- in the public schools.
Gerrymandered zone? You judge. http://www.lrsd.org/files/zones/maps/centr…
Here's link to LISA Academy Middle School racial numbers:
http://school.yohdah.com/ar/little-rock/50…
Note that Asian population is almost identical to white population and both are each just slightly higher than the combined black & hispanic population.
Regarding LRSD, here are some notes:
The percentage of white children enrolled in America's public schools -- 60 percent in 2001-2002 -- is 7 percentage points less than a decade before, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The Little Rock School District is increasingly becoming racially imbalanced as white parents enroll their children in private and suburban public schools in greater numbers each year. Little Rock's population is 55 percent white and 40 percent African-American. Black students, however, make up about 70 percent of the Little Rock School District's public classrooms, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
In 2009, the student body at Central High School was approximately 54% Black and 43% White.
According to one website I linked to while looking for Central AP numbers, the site below has racial makeup/civil rights data for US public schools:
http://ocrdata.ed.gov/Default.aspx
I leave it up to you to see if that gives you any data you want to look at.
Many of the 'liberal' community advocate public education for the 'little people' yet send their children to private schools. Obama and Clinton are just two that come to mind immediately. obama didn't want vouchers for DC children as he enrolled his own in an exclusively private institution. The hypocrisy is very apparent. I wonder how many of the white limousine liberals in Little Rock who are very visable supporters of liberal organizations send their kids to private schools? They want public education for you while participating in private education for their own.
Just to clarify, Max, I didn't bring your family into it. You know how I feel about that.
In 2009-2010, about 54% of Central High students were Black. In the most popular AP course (English Language & Composition), about 7% of the students were Black.
I wish that I had a name for this situation. But it's not, "segregation", or "discrimination." It's about choice, which can reveal something that we haven't come to understand.
Just to clarify, Max, I didn't bring your family into it. You know how I feel about that.
In 2009-2010, about 54% of Central High students were Black. In the most popular AP course (English Language & Composition), about 7% of the students were Black.
I wish that I had a name for this situation. But it's not, "segregation", or "discrimination." It's about choice, which can reveal something that we haven't come to understand.
Nothing is apparent unless you provide data to make it so.
Back to Blacks & AP classes. Interesting article about Black participation rising in AP classes (but the performance gap still remains, sadly):
http://www.jbhe.com/features/59_apscoringg…
More data:
AP Participation by Racial and Ethnic Group
Group
% of School Population
% of AP Enrollment
% Earning 3 on One AP Exam
White
64.0%
61.7%
65.5%
Latino
14.6%
14.0%
13.6%
Black
14.0%
7.4%
3.3%
Asian
5.5%
10.4%
11.5%
Native American
1.1%
0.6%
0.4%
One more item from a news release:
Tommie Sue Anthony, president of the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Sciences, which is funded primarily through a grant from the national Math and Science Initiative, told board members that the number of students achieving scores of 3 or better on AP math, science and English scores — the highest possible score is 5 — increased in Arkansas by 46 percent from 2007 to 2011.
Anthony said 36,421 total AP exams were taken in 2010-11, with 10,949, or 30.1 percent receiving qualifying scores of 3 or better.
Black students took 8.1 percent more AP exams 2009-2010, with an increase of 15.4 percent in qualifying scores. Hispanics students took 22 percent more AP exams from 2009-2010, with an increase of 12.4 percent receiving qualifying scores.
Brantley: I looked at the geographical school boundaries for Central and I am scratching my head that you would even imply that they are NOT gerrymandered. Good grief, man! If that is NOT gerrymandering, what is? It is obvious that they drew them to include the 'silk purse' sections of Little Rock.
Jake, thank for the link to the article. (I think) it gently addresses that situation that I can't name.
As for Black participation in AP courses, the national data that you cite make my point that these discrepancies exist whenever choice is involved, and the situation seems to be especially bad at Central.
You're welcome, Doc.
To get the Central High School AP data by race, go to:
http://ocrdata.ed.gov/Default.aspx
Select school search; enter Central HS, LR, AR; select 2006 as date.
You will be given data for 2006 by doing this. Some 2009 data will be posted but it will not show AP test results. The main difference and it is very noticable is that the number of Black students taking AP classes increased by nearly 30% from '06 to '09.
Look on the right hand side of the page where it says Choose Your Data. Select Advance Placement Course & Test Taking. A window will pop up with a fairly comprehensive breakdown of enrollment & AP class data (including passing rates) by race. You will have to calculate the percentages yourself.
Here is my percentage calculations based on the 2006 numbers they listed from the first line. I chose these to show because they give AP test results. The first number is how many are enrolled. The second number is how many did not pass any AP test they took.
Total -- 790 (385)
White -- 535 (230)
Black -- 185 (130)
Hispanic -- 15 (5)
Asian/Pacific Islander -- 55 (15)
American Indian -- 5 (5)
Now the percentages: the first shows each group's part of the total; the second shows the percentage from within each group that did not pass any AP test they took.
White -- 67.7%; 43%
Black -- 23.4%; 70.3%
Hispanic -- 1.9%; 33.3%
Asian etc. -- 7.0% 27.3%
Am. Indian -- 0.6%; 0%
Oops! Minor correction on very last entry. The percentage failure rate for Am. Indians at CHS was 100%. My bad....
Chelsea Clinton attended public school in Little Rock while her dad was Governor and did not go to the private Friends School (Quaker) in DC until her dad became President - for security reasons. Many institutions do not want the security hassles and notoriety that come with having the first children attend.
Security reasons was the excuse. The obvious hypocrisy are the number of liberals who have money who choose to send their kids to private schools. Obviously you chose to not address that fact.
Keep on making up the world you want to live, Holmesie. You CAN make anything into what you want.
Just don't make us buy into it.
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