Judge OKs pact ending Ark. desegregation payments

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Judge OKs pact ending Ark. desegregation payments
By KELLY P. KISSEL, Associated Press | January 13, 2014 | Updated: January 13, 2014 10:45pm

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge said Monday that Arkansas can stop making payments in one of the nation's most historic desegregation efforts but cautioned that work remains to ensure Little Rock-area students receive a proper education.

The state has made more than $1 billion in payments to three Little Rock-area school districts since 1989 to aid desegregation efforts. Under the deal approved by U.S. District Judge Price Marshall on Monday, those payments will end in four years, even though one of the districts still hasn't been declared desegregated.

"I think this is a day we can write in the book and draw a circle around and remember that we did something important," Marshall said. He said his objective was to ensure the agreement among lawyers for the state, the districts and black schoolchildren was fair, reasonable and adequate.

"There comes a time ... where things should stop and things should go in the book," Marshall said. "This is a fair and appropriate place to have a stop."


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Judge-OKs-pact-ending-Ark-desegregation-payments-5137250.php

[rpannier]

1. In three years we will find out what that historical thing is

I'm not getting a good feeling about it though

[Seeking Serenity]

2. It's time

The issues surrounding desegregation in the LRSD and the other two school districts in Pulaski County have moved past a judicial remedy and the state's payments to the 3 county school districts (and I say this as a mom with a son in the LRSD) was money that couldn't be spent on education elsewhere in the state.

I will say, though, in a purely parochial, self-interested way, I wonder what real-world effect the stopping of state payments four years hence will have on the LRSD.