Court Casts Doubt on Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plan

This from the School Law blog:

A federal appeals court has cast doubt on a Louisiana school district's student assignment plan that had a goal of maintaining racial balance and had allowed the district to be freed of court supervision for desegregation.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled 2-1 on Thursday that a lower court must give greater scrutiny to the student assignment plan of the Ascension Parish school system.

The 20,000-student district, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, was declared unitary, or legally desegregated, in 2004. When the school board in 2006 was evaluating plans to deal with overcrowding at one of the district's four high schools, it took data about the proportion of African-American students and at-risk students at feeder schools into account. The board cited a desire to maintain its unitary status.

A father of two black children in the district sued, alleging that the board's consideration of race and selection of an option that placed more at-risk students in a particular feeder zone violated the U.S. Constitution's equal-protection clause.

A federal district court held that the school system's plan was race neutral on its face and that evidence was lacking that the school board had a discriminatory motive in adopting it.

In its Nov. 3 decision in Lewis v. Ascension Parish School Board, the 5th Circuit panel called for more factual development in the lower court to determine whether the plan involves race classifications and thus must pass muster under the highest level of constitutional analysis, known as "strict scrutiny." ...

Decision Time in the Ville

For lunch today, the Jefferson County Board of Education is chewing over what to do with their two finalists for superintendent. Both candidates have come under fire for their vague stances on Jefferson County's student assignment plan and at least three groups, including the Courier-Journal have called for a new search.

KSN&C did not do a complete review of the candidates, but did spend about 4 hours poking around the public record on the candidates. Both Christine Johns, superintendent in Utica, Michigan and Donna Hargens, chief academic officer for Wake County, N.C. appear to be competent administrators who can do the hard word of the superintendency. Both come from tough circumstances.

A board of education source tells KSN&C that CCSSO Executive Director Gene Wilhoit reached out to education leaders in Michigan and North Carolina and was told that both women were solid.

Christine Johns has served in Michigan where the recession has hit hard and politicians have taken it out on the schools. In March 2010 she closed four schools to balance a $33 million budget shortfall. But that was only the most recent in a depressing string of reductions over the prior seven years that caused Utica to cut $47 million, laying off 400 employees, slashing administrative salaries and implementing employee furloughs.John's moved to privatize custodial services in an effort to save about $4 million per year. Lamenting the cuts, in March 2009 Johns told the legislature, "if we want high-quality schools, we have to pay for them."

The daughter of a repeatedly laid off steelworker, Johns said she learned a critical lesson about the value of education. With a Bachelors from Pitt and a reputation for championing the underdog, Johns has been seen as hard-driving, ambitious and trailblazing. She was at Harvard GSE before it's sold out to Wall Street, but still seems to maintain the Broad/Gates/Bush/Obama free marketish, school turnaround game plan.

Often the bridesmaid, in April 2003 Johns was a finalist in Seminole County Florida. In June 2005 she was a finalist in St. Mary's County Maryland. In April 2005 John's was a finalist in Evergreen Washington. In July 2005 she was a finalist for the Pittsburgh job. The Plain Dealer cited her Harvard doctorate and said she "created a buzz in education circles." August 2005 the Cleveland Plain Dealer identified John's as one of seven people qualified to lead Cleveland schools.

Johns was trained in the high profile management program for urban superintendents funded by the Broad Center for Management of School Systems, which emphasizes innovation and competition in school management. A big improving-student-achievement-through-school reform focus.

July 2007 Johns paid her own way on a tour of schools in China.

In August 2008 health care and wages were still being negotiated with the Utica Education Association and teachers started school without a contract. Those issues were apparently resolved without job actions.

Johns told the Courier-Journal she supports diversity as a concept. And she says she has views on Meredith v Jefferson County…but her vagueness prevents me from telling you what they are.

Donna Hargens, while Chief Academic Officer in Wake County North Carolina,  ran a zero tolerance disciplinary program that was objected to by the NAACP for its suspension of more than 1000 students - disproportionately minority. Most districts nationally abandoned zero tolerance programs much earlier. Wake County abandoned their program last month.

In May, Hargens approved a transfer for a board member's daughter. That met with objections, followed by a new board policy requiring full board approval of such actions. Apparently of 143,000 Wake County students, only 15 transfers were approved under a "best interest" policy which required no paperwork. The affair was suspicious for favoritism.

News stories out of Wake County make it sound like a snake pit. The board of education appears to be quite dysfunctional politically right now. It is the kind of place where, following election to nonpartisan races, the elected thank political parties for their support. On a rare unanimous vote, Hargens served as interim superintendent, following the protest resignation of the former superintendent when the Wake County board abandoned its diversity plan.

North Carolina has non-partisan school board elections (but not really) for 9 seats. Wake County has lots of 5-4 votes. The county's conservative majority school board, which famously dismantled the districts' economically-based student assignment policy in favor of a neighborhood plan, selected Fox News commentator and former Brig General Anthony Tata as superintendent on a 4-2 vote. The Democratic board members voting against Tata, praised Hargens. Secrecy surrounded the search. It was unclear from the public record that Hargens was a candidate, but she tells the JCPS Board that she was not. The public reportedly wanted a superintendent from outside Wake County. After his selection, Tata kept Hargens on as Chief Academic Officer, but one gets the sense that she began seeking greener pastures. The Vice Chair of the Wake Board called Hargens "a true professional" saying she doesn't know what Hargens views are on the districts diversity assignment policy. It would seem Hargens was chosen because the board thought she would do as told.

Hargens recommended the use of RTTT funds for recruitment bonuses, merit pay, additional technology.

Hargens had been an unsuccessful candidate for superintendent in New Hanover County in August 2010.  A Star News editorial called Hargens a “competent administrator” but says New Hanover board should choose a leader.

The News and Observer reported that Hargens dodged the issue of whether neighborhood schools will lead to resegregation. Hargens seemed to argue, as she has in Jefferson County, that she will do whatever the board says, calling it a "governance issue." New Hanover board chair said, "we know she's an excellent administrator… She sees the position of superintendent is to carry out the will of the school board. Right now that will of the board is neighborhood schools."

There is no substitute for strong leadership. JCPS should pass on Hargens.

This from the Courier-Journal:

JCPS board could make decision

next week on new superintendent

They interviewed with the school board, shook hands with parents and held private meetings with community leaders.

Now, the fate of the two finalists vying to lead the Kentucky's largest school system is in the hands of the Jefferson County Board of Education — who will meet Tuesday to evaluate the search, the candidates, consider community input and set a timeline for a decision.

The board may make a hire within a week, board Chairman Steve Imhoff said.

The finalists are Christine Johns, superintendent of Utica, Mich., Community Schools; and Donna Hargens, chief academic officer for Wake County, N.C., Public Schools.

Though praised for their professional accomplishments and academic experience, Johns and Hargens were criticized by the NAACP for refusing to take clear stands on Jefferson County's student-assignment plan and asked the board to reopen its search.

The Louisville Metro Human Relations Commission issued a similar call, arguing the hiring process was rushed.

But Imhoff, who has long supported efforts to keep schools integrated, said he's satisfied that both candidates sufficiently value diverse schools. As of Monday, he said he isn't inclined to ask the board to reopen the search...

Gordon Drops Lawsuit against JCPS

This from the Courier-Journal:

Lawyer says he will drop student-assignment

lawsuit against JCPS

Louisville attorney Teddy Gordon said Tuesday he will drop a lawsuit seeking to halt Jefferson County Public Schools’ new socioeconomic integration plan.

Gordon filed the suit in July on behalf of several parents who argued they were denied a school choice because of an unconstitutional use of race.

He said he plans to ask U.S. District Judge John Heyburn for a dismissal by agreement with the school district because two of the plaintiffs were granted acceptable school transfers and the third decided to home-school their child.

“I can’t go forward without a plaintiff in good standing to pursue the case,” he said, adding that he wasn’t upset that he had to drop the case for now. “My job is to satisfy my clients, and I have achieved results in two of the three.”

He said he would likely accept future plaintiffs to continue his challenges, because in his view “the plan is still clearly unconstitutional.”

Frank Mellen, a district lawyer, said that Heyburn’s Aug. 4 rejection of Gordon’s injunction request, in which he ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the plan relied too heavily on race or was unconstitutional, may have dissuaded the plaintiffs...

JCPS Rejects Majority of Transfer Requests

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Lack of space is primary reason

requests turned down

More than 600 parents will receive letters within the next week notifying them that their request to transfer their child to a different elementary school has been denied.

Jefferson County Public Schools sent out the first batch of letters yesterday concerning the transfer requests.

Between May 4 and June 1, the district received 1,061 transfer requests from parents who weren't happy with their child's assigned school under a new student-assignment plan. Only 408 transfers were granted, or less than 40 percent.

Pat Todd, director of student assignment, said most transfers were denied primarily because of lack of space, especially in East End schools...

District officials acknowledge that the new student-assignment plan, which elementary schools have begun using for the 2009-10 school year, is responsible for the spike in transfer requests.

After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the district's old plan in 2007 because it relied too heavily on individual students' race, the district created a plan that considers not only race, but also income and education level.

The plan, intended to keep schools integrated, requires schools to enroll 15 percent to 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods where the average household income is below $41,000; average education levels are less than a high school diploma with some college; and the minority population is more than 48 percent.

To help achieve that, the district regrouped its 90 elementary schools into six regional clusters -- with 11 to 15 schools in each cluster...

Sacrificing no one

This from C-J:

On the one hand, it's discouraging that "hundreds seek change in school assignments," as a recent headline put it.

On the other hand, as Jefferson County Public Schools student assignment director Pat Todd observed, "Out of 12,000 applications, we had about 850 inquiries" that referred to attending different schools. That's a relatively small number, given the great sensitivity of such issues. Few things, if any, move parents as powerfully as
the safety and success of their children, and both can be at issue in the assignment of a youngster to a particular location.

Overall, the JCPS administration has made a success of redoing student assignment, to overcome the wrongheaded objections of a U.S. Supreme Court majority. If there is any justice, the new plan will pass legal muster, and this community will be able to pursue its goal of preparing the next generation of local graduates, emphasizing academic achievement across a system that is diverse and demanding.

By approving the student assignment plan unanimously, the board placed its confidence in the school system to do all that's possible for every single student. Principals, teachers, staff and administrators absolutely must take seriously the concerns of parents, like Gina Gatti, who "understand the logic of student assignment" but fear their child "is being sacrificed."

It's up to our public educators, from Superintendent Sheldon Berman on down, to make sure that no student is sacrificed— that every youngster's needs are recognized and each one's opportunities are maximized. And Ms. Gatti also may find reassurance in this truth: Nothing predicts student success as reliably as parental concern and involvement.

JCPS officials should do everything they can to answer the questions and concerns of parents such as Ms. Gatti. They are predictable and legitimate. However, Mr. Berman's goal is the right one — quality in every school, opportunity in every classroom, commitment to every child.

There's a false sense of security in a school system that only puts students in seats next to those who come from the same kinds of homes and share the same benefits or deficits of history. A system that ghettoizes achievement — racially, socially, economically or on any other basis — would sacrifice the future of our whole community.

Angry parents seek school assignment transfers

"He'll never set foot in that school"

--Parent Scott Burba whose kindergartner was assigned

to a lower-performing school for first grade.

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Angry parents questioning

JCPS placement of elementary students

Jefferson County's new student-assignment plan is prompting hundreds of angry parents to ask for transfers because their child is being sent to a different elementary
school than they requested.

A week after notices were sent out for roughly 12,000 incoming kindergartners and first-graders, officials with Jefferson County Public Schools are being assailed with hundreds of calls and transfer requests from parents questioning their assigned schools.

By noon Friday, more than 250 parents had called the district and 600 had filed transfer requests, and officials expect more this week.

Some parents are complaining that their children are being sent across the county when there's a school near their home...

And this from C-J:

School board approves plan on integration

Elementary parents complain

Despite vocal opposition, the Jefferson County Board of Education last night approved the final piece of its new, more diverse school-integration plan, capping a two-year effort to replace a desegregation policy that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down because it relied too heavily on race.

But the approval of middle school and high school boundaries and program changes came as angry parents descended on the meeting to complain about the district's elementary school plan, which was approved last year and is being enacted this fall.

Upset about student assignments for next year, they complained that their children were being sent to more distant or lower-performing schools when better schools were nearby. Some even vowed to leave the school system rather than send their children on long bus rides...

JCPS Tackles Student Assignment Plan

This from Toni at C-J:

Middle, high schools focus of work session

The Jefferson County Board of Education has moved a step closer to giving final approval to a new student assignment plan for middle and high schools. The plan, which includes boundary changes for dozens of schools, was discussed during a work session before last night's school board meeting. It will be further discussed at the board's April 27 meeting and be voted on May 11.

The changes, which would take effect with the 2010-11 school year, are all part of the school district's effort to adopt a new way of assigning students after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 struck down its desegregation plan, which required that schools keep black enrollment between 15 percent and 50 percent.

The district now requires schools to enroll 15 percent to 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods where the average household income is below $41,000; average education levels are less than a high school diploma with some college; and the minority population is more than 48 percent...

Readin’, ‘Ritin’, ‘Rithmetic, and Responsibility

The first book in the 97th volume of the Kentucky Law Journal is now available for purchase.

In this edition Sarah Sloan Wilson has written -

"Readin’, ‘Ritin’, ‘Rithmetic, and Responsibility: Advocating for the Development of Controlled-Choice Student-Assignment Plans after Parents Involved."

As one public-school board member has remarked, “student assignment is not pleasant.” After the Supreme Court’s decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, in which the court struck down Seattle Public Schools and Jefferson County Public Schools’ use of individual racial classifications, student assignment has become an even more unpleasant task for board members, especially those faced with evidence of rising racial isolation in their districts.

In "Readin’, ‘Ritin’, ‘Rithmetic, and Responsibility: Advocating for the Development of Controlled-Choice Student-Assignment Plans after Parents Involved," Wilson, a former middle and high school English teacher, proposes a controlled-choice student-assignment plan that will comply with Parents Involved while, at the same time, work toward a district’s goal of providing an equal and excellent education for all students, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or residential location.

Since 1913, the Kentucky Law Journal has published scholarly works of general interest to the legal community and is the 10th oldest law school journal in the country. It is produced by students of the University of Kentucky College of Law under the direction of an 11-person editorial board and with the advice of a faculty member. The Kentucky Law Journal is published quarterly by the College of Law.

Hat Tip to Kentucky Law Review.

C-J Backs JCPS Student Assignment Plan

This from C-J:

Plan for success

Louisville's city schools desegregated voluntarily, back in the 1950s, soon after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and earned national recognition for peaceful change. Beginning in the mid-1970s, a combined city-county system used busing to help deal with re-segregation, and, after a rough start, a strong public constituency for diversity emerged and prevailed.

More recently, Jefferson County Public Schools fought tenaciously in the courts for its attendance system. Now, after a setback dealt by the U.S. Supreme Court, the system is again adjusting its plans, in an effort to protect the benefits of diversity for as many students as possible.

The point is, this community has waged a long struggle to do what is both just and smart, and there's no reason to stop now. Most local folks don't want children from different backgrounds educated in isolation from each other, because the point is to school them for success in a diverse world...

NAACP Objects to Ed Department Letter on Race

The Department of Education provides occasional guidance to school districts in the form of "Dear Colleague" letters.

A recent letter, the office for civil rights opined on the issue of race in student assignment under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education (combined with Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District).

The NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund quickly disputed the Bush Administration's legal analysis saying the Department of Education's "interpretation of the decision is inaccurate in a number of respects."

In Parents Involved, a majority of the Supreme Court justices (the four Justices who would have upheld the student assignment plans from Seattle and Louisville at issue in the case, and Justice Kennedy, who found some aspects of those plans unacceptable but approved of their purpose) recognized that school districts have compelling interests in promoting student diversity and avoiding racial isolation in elementary and secondary school settings.

The majority agreed that, in Justice Kennedy's words, a school district can, in its "discretion and expertise", take affirmative steps to avoid racial isolation and to achieve a diverse student population, Parents Involved, 127 S.Ct. at 2797, and that school officials may "consider the racial makeup of schools and adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition." Parents Involved, 127 S.Ct. at 2792.

But the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights focused only the court's race-neutral language.

In the two page “Dear colleague” letter dated Aug. 28 the OCR says:

“The Department of Education strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods for assigning students to elementary and secondary schools.”

“Genuinely race-neutral measures” such as those based on a student’s socioeconomic status would not trigger the highest level of court scrutiny, the office says.

As Mark Walsh over at the School Law Blog points out,

"The letter takes no notice of the key concurring opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the cases from Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky."

Anurima Bhargava, the director of the civil rights group’s education practice, said the letter “is very limited in its reading” of the high court decision. “It’s as if Kennedy hadn’t written,” she said.

The court ruled 5-4 in June of last year that assignment plans in the two districts that and sometimes relied on race-based assignments to achieve diversity in individual schools, violated the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that while those districts used race in an unconstitutional manner, it would be permissible for districts to take race into account under certain circumstances, such as when choosing sites for new schools, drawing attendance zones based on neighborhood demographics, or allocating resources for special programs.

C-J gives Berman's plan high marks

This from the Courier-Journal:

The board says yes

Supt. Sheldon Berman has passed a major test with high marks. He earned a unnanimous endorsement from the Jefferson County Public Schools board, for a new school assignment plan that factors in not just race but also education and income.

The public seems largely satisfied with the plan, which was necessitated by a wrong-headed and hard-hearted decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, in which a bare majority of justices undercut this community's long commitment to diversity.

Only a handful of citizens and parents showed up at the board meeting where a final vote on the new plan was taken. This absence of controversy could suggest a number of things, but we believe it means the proposal was thoughtfully put together and carefully adjusted to meet the concerns of not just board members but also other interested individuals and groups.

It really was a historic moment for JCPS. It was one more evidence of the community's ongoing commitment to educating young folks for the kind of world they will encounter after graduation.

Resolving the high court's objections to the current approach will clear the way toward solving real problems and truly fundamental goals.

For example, the school system -- when looked at broadly -- works very well. But it is failing too many economically and socially disadvantaged children. Too many schools just aren't getting the job done. Dr. Berman and his team have kept this in mind as they fashioned a new approach to school clusters and magnet sites. They have used school assignment planning as an opportunity to position JCPS for broader, deeper success.

Statistics just released by the state Department of Education underline only one of the unmet challenges: a dropout rate of 6.4 percent last year, and a graduation rate of 72.7 percent. Those are not acceptable numbers, in an era when the high school diploma is a minimum requirement for finding stable and meaningful work.

School board approves student-assignment plan

This from C-J:

Change to begin in fall of 2009

Calling it a historic moment for Jefferson County Public Schools, the district's board voted unanimously yesterday to approve an integration plan that will use race, income and education in assigning children to schools.

"This is a terrific opportunity because we are starting something new and as we move forward and work through this, I believe it is going to be better for our students," said board member Larry Hujo.

Under the new student-assignment plan, all schools -- elementary, middle and high -- must enroll at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent of their students from neighborhoods that have income and education levels below the school district average, and higher-than-average numbers of minorities.

The plan would begin in elementary schools with the 2009-10 school year, although district officials have said they don't expect every school to immediately meet the goals. The board decided last night to keep in their current schools about 3,400 elementary students who would have had to move. Those students will not be affected by the plan until they move to middle school.

Jefferson County was forced to create a new student-assignment plan after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that the school district's old plan was unconstitutional. The court said the district looked only at individual students' race when assigning them to schools.

Several board members, along with Superintendent Sheldon Berman, called the creation of a new student-assignment plan a historic moment for both Jefferson County and its school system, one of the largest in the country.

"There have been a number of historic moments … in general, they have gone the other direction, in terms of being forced to integrate," Berman said. "This one is to sustain integration within the context of a very complex decision on the part of the U.S. Supreme Court." ...

Jefferson County Board to consider student-assignment plan

This from C-J:

Attendance guide has broad base

The Jefferson County Board of Education will decide tonight whether to move forward with an integration plan that would use race, income and education in assigning children to schools.

Under the proposal, all schools -- elementary, middle and high -- must enroll at least 15 percent and no more than
50 percent of their students from neighborhoods that have income and education levels below the district average and higher-than-average numbers of minorities...

...Some national desegregation experts predict the plan
will withstand legal challenges and keep schools from becoming racially or socioeconomically segregated.But Alan Foutz, senior attorney for California's Pacific Legal Foundation, which is challenging a similar plan in Berkeley,
Calif., said he believes both plans are simply a proxy for using race in making student assignments, and are unconstitutional.

And Teddy Gordon, the Louisville lawyer who forced the district to drop its previous desegregation policy, agreed, saying in a statement yesterday that the plan "will be
challengeable." ...

...Then, district officials expanded its definition of diversity to include not only race, but also education and income level. It measured the average household income, education level and minority population of elementary school enrollment areas, based on U.S. Census data.

It decided that every school must have at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent of it students from enrollment areas where the average household income among school families was below $41,000; the average education level was less than a high-school diploma with some college; and minority student population was more than 48 percent...

Jefferson school plan revised to offer more choice

This from C-J:

The revisions, which will be presented to the school board for discussion Monday night, will reduce the number of elementary clusters, putting more schools in each cluster for parents to choose from.

It's the second time this month that officials have changed the student-assignment proposal, which is designed to keep schools diverse in the wake of last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the district's old plan...

Challenge to Louisville school assignments filed too soon

This from the Herald-Leader:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. --A federal judge turned away a challenge to Louisville's student assignment plan for the coming school year, saying it was brought too soon because no one has been affected by it yet.

U.S. District Judge John Heyburn said on Tuesday that without having anyone affected by the plan, there's no way to know whether it violates the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last summer barring race in assigning individual students to schools.

"We're much better off deciding this case not as a hypothetical," Heyburn said.

Heyburn's decision came after attorney Teddy Gordon challenged Jefferson County's interim assignment plan. Gordon, who brought the case that resulted in the Supreme Court decision, said the interim plan illegally uses race to draw district lines for several schools, to the detriment of about 340 students...

And this from C-J:

...Heyburn told Gordon yesterday that would be difficult to determine whether someone's rights would be violated by the temporary plan without actual plaintiffs who say the plan harmed them.
"You may well have some valid points, but I don't know," the judge said.
Heyburn told Gordon to find a plaintiff and file a lawsuit if he wants to further challenge the plan.
"If someone tomorrow is denied choice of admission under circumstances that you think are problematic, the court will address that as a new case, if that is what it would take," he said, promising to handle it "very quickly, well before the start of the school year." ...

Jefferson County Desegregation Plan

This from Marc Murphy in The Courier-Journal.

Gordon's Rant: JCPS Student Assignment Illusion is 'arrogant' and 'embarrassing'

Teddy B. Gordon, of Louisville, is the plaintiff's attorney in the Jefferson County School desegregation case, (Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education) which was decided last summer by the U.S. Supreme Court. His Op-Ed (below) ran in this morning's Courier-Journal.

Now, if anybody has a right to be riding high about now, I suppose it's Gordon. Coming off his big win, and big payday, it is expected that Gordon should babysit implementation of the new JCPS student assignment plan. But here Gordon is attempting to personally fill in all of the blank spaces left by the Court in its opinion. It is a bit over the top; and not likely to impress his high school English teacher. But his questioning why it is that black children bare the greatest burden under such plans is appropriate.

It is one thing to imagine a system where every parent can select the school their child will attend. It is quite another to provide it.

In the real world, geography matters; where people can afford to live matters; where a free people choose to live matters; the resources and space limitations of any given school matters. Every district needs a plan that is as fair as possible to all students.

The JCPS effort to provide students with an educational experience that is more 'all-American' and less 'tribal' is admirable. Student assignment plans that attempt to reflect the natural diversity in society are right-headed. But the Court has correctly judged that the current defacto segregation of students in American schools is NOT the result of deliberate government action.

Teddy Gordon need not demogogue the issue. Claims of social engineering are valid on both sides of this murky question.

Attorney faults JCPS 'arrogance'

This latest attempt by Sheldon Berman and the Jefferson County School Board (JCPS) is extremely troubling to me and should be to every parent in this school district. That such a vital public agency that impacts all our children would willfully try to subjugate (sic) the U.S. Supreme Court and thumb their noses at our judicial system. JCPS's arrogance is not just embarrassing, but proves to our nearly 100,000 schoolchildren that their lives mean nothing to this public agency.

The questions we all (parents and guardians, lawyers, school officials, community leaders and the news media) need to be asking of Berman and every JCPS board member, principal and teacher is why.

Why just another shell game with the moving pieces being shuffled are our children, and mostly African-American children) -- all for an illusion of diversity without improved educational outcome.

Why will once again black children (or in JCPS's new classification, "minority") be bused longer, farther and more often than white (or "non-minority") children.

Why will the majority of Black children be bused to the lower performing schools? Will a high performing school like Wilder Elementary have the same percent of minority that Whitney Young does?

If, in fact there are over 3000 children waiting to get into a traditional or magnet school, why aren't more traditional and magnet schools being built in the inner city instead of three new ones in the suburbs?

And why impose a hard percentage of 15/50, and if one of the factors is race along with home location/income and parents' education, does the race card become the determining factor in turning away black children from better performing schools.

Why weren't there public forums to hear what parents and guardians want for their children before any plan was implemented. And will any upcoming public forum really change the proposed student assignment plan or are these forums and surveys just another illusion that the JCPS wants to create.

Why if JCPS has known about this since 2000, have they not come up with a better plan that improves education for every child, no matter what the color of his or her skin is.

It is these answers that will determine if this new student assignment plan passes constitutional -- and community -- mustard (sic) -- or if this JCPS plan once again infringes on the rights of minorities and punishes them for their (sic) color of their skin. These answers determine whether Berman and JCPS are truly interested in doing what is best for all our children.

JCPS insists on turning our children into social experiment (sic) that is not only out-dated, but worse failing our children.

Instead of concentrating their efforts and resources (especially in a time of reduced federal and state budgets) on improving education for every child, this gathering of old outdated school board members and administrators along with self-designated titled of so-called experts force upon a plan (sic) that never has or will improve the education of our children.

The most important question every parent and guardian should ask when their child is being bused to a school they do not like is "Why." Why is my child being bused to a school that I do not approve of?

And demand a satisfactory answer from the principal of the school and of JCPS. Your child, every child, deserves an equal educational opportunity.

When parental choice becomes the only factor in deciding where children go to school, then all of God's children will truly be judged by the content of their character and education, not by the color of their skin.

Schools' interim desegregation plan challenged

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race

is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,"

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

That was the zinger that encapsulated the Court's decision in Meredith v Jefferson County Board of Education. But that is not the whole case.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy did not join all of the majority opinion - only the result. That left a gap of uncertainty as to the meaning of the Court's 5-4 decision; a gap the Jefferson County Board of Education is trying to squeeze into.

Kennedy suggested in his separate opinion that the Robert's opinion, in part, "is at least open to the interpretation that the Constitution requires school districts to ignore the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling. I cannot endorse that conclusion," he wrote.

The Jefferson County Board of Education responded with a new temporary student assignment plan that looks like the old plan.

So it wasn't too hard to predict what would happen next. This from the Courier-Journal:

The Louisville lawyer who successfully challenged Jefferson County's school desegregation policy is now challenging the district's interim plan, saying it illegally uses race to assign students.

Attorney Ted Gordon filed a motion yesterday in U.S. District Court in Louisville, asking Judge John Heyburn II to review the temporary plan adopted last week for the 2008-09 school year.

Gordon said he wants Heyburn to determine whether Jefferson County Public Schools has revived "a quota system" and is "assigning kindergartners and first-graders to elementary schools based upon racial classifications."

"They are still using race as a way to assign children and they cannot do that," Gordon said in an interview yesterday. "I am shocked the school board did not ask (Heyburn) for approval before they approved this plan."

Byron Leet, an attorney who represents the county Board of Education, said yesterday that Gordon's motion has no merit.

"He is trying to reopen a case that has already been closed," Leet said...

Education Week's School Law Blog lists several resources for those thying to divine the Court's real meaning.

...[T]he NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund recently published a manual for parents, educators, and advocates on what steps are still legally available to maintain racially diverse schools. The 95-page manual, Still Looking to the Future: Voluntary K-12 School Integration, is available in PDF form online or can be ordered from the organization. "While altering the landscape of school integration, the Seattle/Louisville decision did not provide a clear set of rules and principles for school districts to follow, and created some confusion about what school districts and communities can do to promote integration in their schools," the manual states.

There are some other helpful documents out there for educators as they grapple with the Seattle/Jefferson County decision.

The National School Boards Association teamed up with the College Board last year to publish "Not Black and White," a guide to the Supreme Court's decision.

And earlier, the NSBA had released "An Educated Guess: Initial Guidance on Diversity in Public Schools After PICS v. Seattle School District."

And the Hogan & Hartson law firm, which works with many school districts on diversity issues, put out its own guidance last year. The firm issued this document shortly after the decision last summer, and this updated guidance last September. (Thanks to Maree Sneed of Hogan & Hartson for the documents.)

Finally, for those who want more to chew on, the Harvard Law Review devoted several articles to analyzing the Seattle/Jefferson County race decisions in its November issue.

Temporary Jefferson Plan 'not much different,' Looks at Race,Income and Geography

Temporary desegregation plan approved

School makeup geography-based

Deciding it couldn't afford to wait, the Jefferson County school board has pushed through a temporary desegregation plan for next school year that uses geography instead of race.

This fall, officials will assign students so that elementary schools have at least 15 percent and no more than 50 percent of their enrollment from school residential areas with minority populations of at least 45 percent.

The plan would apply to children entering first grade, students new to the district or who have moved, and those requesting transfers.


Superintendent Sheldon Berman said yesterday in an interview it won't affect current assignments, and he believes that "93 percent" of parents will get their first school choice.
"This is not much different than the way we have operated in the past," Berman said. "We are just using the geographic area of a school's 'resides area' and not a student's race."

But Teddy Gordon, the lawyer who fought to throw out the district's old desegregation policy, said he does not believe the interim policy is constitutional. He called on the district to have the temporary plan reviewed by a federal judge, threatening to sue if the district refuses.

"This is an absolute farce," he said, after hearing yesterday of Monday's unexpected vote. "The way they are doing this, they are thumbing their nose at the U.S. Supreme Court."

The justices ruled 5-4 in June that Jefferson County could not look at individual students' race when assigning them to schools.

The ruling prompted the county to stop considering the race of individual students when assigning them to schools. Since then, officials said, about a dozen schools have slipped outside the district's guideline of 15 percent to 50 percent black enrollment at most schools.

Berman said the temporary plan, which the school board unanimously passed at the end of Monday's work session, is a stop-gap measure designed "to prevent slippage" of diversity at elementary schools until the district can adopt a permanent policy beginning with the 2009-10 school year.

The district's long-term proposal to keep its schools desegregated would use race, income and education equally in assigning students...


This from the Courier-Journal. Video.

Jefferson County ready to unveil school assignment plans

Final decision expected by mid-May

Civil-rights leaders want to make sure schools stay racially integrated. Parents want to keep school choice. And students want to stay where they are.

The stakes will be high tomorrow when officials with Jefferson County Public Schools make public their highly anticipated student-assignment proposals in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting the district's desegregation policy.

"This is something that's going to impact the entire community," said Raoul Cunningham, president of the Louisville NAACP. "We are being watched across the nation."

Among those watching are school districts that want to see how Jefferson County, which has been nationally recognized for its integration efforts, will move forward after the Supreme Court said it can no longer assign individual students to schools based on their race.

Determined to avoid resegregation, Jefferson County officials have spent months weighing options such as neighborhood schools, income- and geography-based assignments, open enrollment and other plans...

...But whatever proposal is chosen will signal a historic shift in how school diversity is defined and achieved -- and usher in a new chapter in Louisville's long struggle with race and education...

This from the Courier-Journal.