Arkansas Blog

White Pine Bluff parents have been sneaking their pride-and-joys south to Woodlawn for years. This practice is wrong, racially motivated, teaches children that lying is OK, hurts urban districts both financially and academically, and needs to be stopped. If you want your child in a school district that badly, move to a home inside that district. Stop cheating!

Having lived the Montessori to public schools experience I've learned the good and the bad of both. If you have the wealth in abundance that will allow you to keep little Buffy behind a locked gate for the entirety of her life, then by all means wall her off from people who are different than she is. However, if you're not a Walton and there is a slight chance that Buffy will have to interact with the rest of the world at any time in the next 90 years, you better start now giving her the opportunity to learn the skills needed to live in the real world.

I know...it's scary! But late at night when I can't sleep and I make little lists of the people I hate and the people who've hurt me in my life, usually a lot of the same names appear on both lists, it occurs to me that all of the damage I've experienced came at the hands of white people just like me. In 53 years only white people have punched my head. Only white people have towed my cars, turned off my water, cheated me at the repair shop. The only peeping Tom I ever caught was white like me. The only time I've had my head split open and been shot at.....it was a white guy. The only women who've done me wrong were white girls. Now....I have no idea who stole the wire hubcaps off my 1973 Olds convertible back in 1980.......they might have been black or they might have been Cuban...weren't no Mexicans in Fort Baptist back then. Or it could have been a white guy....maybe 2 of em.

The only way we'll achieve peace in America is by mixing. My wife's grandmother always told us to be careful in Tom, Oklahoma (closest place to buy beer) because the blacks and whites were mixing over at Tom. The few times I went to Tom it was the carnival workers from hell looking white guys I was worried about. But we have to mix. We'll never warm up to people we keep across the fence from us. And as long as there's Us and Them, someone's going to get the short end of the stick. And that short end of the stick causes things like 9-11 and Darfur and carjacking and rape and murder.

I'm happy to report both my kids have learned to navigate the waters of the different. They don't come pre-loaded with prejudice and suspicion of those who don't look like them. When they tell me so and so is a jerk, it's cause they're a jerk and jerks come in all skin colors and socioeconomic backgrounds. So...while you may think you're doing something good for Buffy, by keeping her behind that electric fence....you're doing her a disservice cause someday she'll have to mix.....and she won't have a clue how to do it.

KnockKnock,
I agree but I think living requirements should be expanded. Make it a requirement that teachers live in the same district they teach in. Why shouldn't a teacher support the district they live in with their tax money? Why is it ok that a teacher can live in one district and teach in another but students have to live in the same district where they go to school?
District requirements for students are lame anyway in some cases. Look at Little Rock. A family can live in the city of Little Rock but they also live in the Pulaski County School District. I think it is time the state goes to one district per county. Then all schools in a county would be in the same district with one board and one superintendent.

Because "race" has no universally accepted legal meaning, one way for parents to teach their children how the world works is to change the child's race until they get the results they want.

"Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived."
Jonathan Swift

White Hall gets more than their share of Dollarway white kiddies here in Jefferson County too. I'd probably run out of fingers and toes long before I ran out of families that I know who use the address of other family members and friends to enroll their kiddies in the paler district. A few years ago, I asked a White Hall school official about it without naming names and discovered how out of touch I was. The officials are aware of it, probably to the last child, but ignore the situation since for each child enrolled, the district gets a specified amount of state money.
I have to disagree with you, Saywhat, in terms of requiring teachers to live in the district in which they teach. I think it would be nearly impossible to hire teachers in many districts if such a rule were in place.
However, the one county, one district idea is long overdue to be implemented. Even so, I doubt I'll live to see it happen and I hope to be at least a hundred.
Oh ok, ninety-five?

The Malvern case is potentially very interesting. I hope more of the court briefs become electronically available soon, as I don't have LexusNexus at my fingertips. From what I know, this case has the potential to get the state law struck down. If the law allows for student assignments on the basis of race alone, to the exclusion of other factors mentioned in the law, that spells trouble for the district/state. I don't' think there is anything in the law that prevents race alone from being used, but I have not re-read that law lately and I am probably mistaken. It is important that the law read something like, "any 2 or more of the following conditions must apply" so that race alone cannot be used.

That being said, it seems that the parents argument in this case is weak and a long shot to win. The merits of the argument may be enough to get a judge to rule in their favor in light of the recent SCOTUS decision, but that will need to be formally adjudicated.

I imagine I'm overlooking somethng, and I stand to be corrected by the educators/administrators on the blog who know about such things.

But if there turns out to be a problem with structuring School Choice in such a way that it doesn't foster segregation, then isn't the answer to ditch School Choice entirely?

Just go to the school in your district of residence. Period. (Unless your district is operating under a court-approved desegregation plan that requires other options.)

Isn't that preferable to keeping School Choice as a possible vehicle for state-approved, state-facilitated white flight?

After all, didn't the State get a multi-million dollar ticket to the LRSD desegregation dance precisely because state law initially required, then faciliatated and encouraged segregation?

Although the latest Supreme Court decision seems to say that governments ordinarily can't volunteer to go out of their way to foster integregation by using race as a factor, it doesn't seem to say that government *must* pass or keep laws that contribute to segregation.

On the school choice with Malvern, yes these parents are breaking the law by choosing what school district to enroll their kids in. These students were given 2 weeks notice that they were to return to Malvern school district or be fined $500 per day. This notification was given in mid September and October to many of these kids affected by Malvern's decision to go after them. Some of these high school students are taking classes at other school districts that Malvern does not offer and will lose credit because Malvern can not provide a comperable class.Most are active in student counsel, athletics, clubs, band, choir and FFA. Moving a child during the middle of a semester is very detrimental to teens whom have become well adjusted in their present school district. This jeopardizes these kids from graduating high school. Isn't that the goal of education anyway. Mr. Golden is only concern with the money that these kids are worth not their well being. Some of these parents had no idea that they lived in the Malvern school district. they only lived 2 miles from the school (MC- Magnet Cove), the real estate agent told them they lived in the Magnet School district, they had children that had already graduated from MC, they lived at the same location for 10 years or more, the school bus that drove by their house was always a MC bus, never Malvern; they voted in the MC school board elections and are registered to vote in the MC school district: the county clerk office didn't notifiy of any changes in district lines, their real estate tax went to Malvern but their personal property tax went to MC (go figure that one out) and Malvern school district never notified them that they were breaking the law until the threats came and the following of kids home from school by a PI. Gee, no wonder the parents and kids are so upset.

My daughter was born and raised in Louisiana. She was raised among all races of people. Until she started school in Arkansas, she referred to people as "dark skinned" or "light skinned", not "black" or "white" or any other color. She had no racial motivations what so ever. One of her oldest and dearest friends (since pre-K) is black. She is now 10 and they still stay in touch. In fact, two years ago, her friend went with us on vacation for 10 days to Florida. She had a 4.0 average and looked forward to school everyday.

She has now been in the Arkansas school system for 7 months. In the past 7 months, she has been punched in the ribs, slapped in the face, had a basketball thrown at the back of her head, pushed, shoved, elbowed, and now thrown to the ground in the school parking lot. She has been threatened and bullied and intimidated since the first day of school. Her grades have dropped to C's and D's and she cries every morning when she has to get on the bus. I have called the principal 10 tens, spoken with the superintendent of schools, called the state commissioner's legal department, and had a lengthy discussion with the local chief of police (the school board president). I have petitioned the school board to move her to another school (in the same district), and have been told that is against the policy and the petition has been denied. Now my daughter is seeing the "real world", as previously stated in this blog. Now she is developing the same anger and hatred of people of different races and color that seems to be prevalent in this state. When she speaks of the bully, she refers to her as "that black hoodlum", spitting the words through her teeth. She is becoming an angry and combative child out of sheer self defense, and she's only 10.

If Little Buffy's parents want to lock her behind a gate and protect their child, then more power to them. If Little Buffy's parents want to spare her the harsh realities of pain and anger through interaction with "hoodlums", then more power to them. If Little Buffy's parents can afford private schools and double addresses for the sake of their daughter, then more power to them. As for us, we can't afford any of these things. If I could sell my house and move, I would. If I could lock her up behind a big iron gate until she's old enough to deal with the "real world", then I would. I find it hard to believe that any parent would do otherwise for the safety of their child, not matter what the "race".