I was reading the Arkansas Times Blog as it reported on a court filing in which Attorney Chris Heller argued, among other things, that the Little Rock School District’s efforts at racial integration were being hampered by charter schools.  Since most traditional public schools in big cities are already heavily racially segregated, I imagined that Heller would have an uphill battle in making his case.  So, I gave the filing a read to see what Heller would say.

It ends up that his arguments are so implausible that I am left with only one reaction, summed up perfectly by John McEnroe in perhaps his most famous on-court tantrum, when he screams to the official:  “You Cannot Be Serious!”

Attorney Heller – You Cannot Be Serious!

In Heller’s brief, filed on September 11 in US District Court, the Little Rock School District (LRSD) is listed as the plaintiff and raises a concern about whether the Pulaski County Special School District and North Little Rock School District are meeting their desegregation obligations.  So far, this is fine — a battle in court among three school districts is just not that interesting …. Until we get to page 2 of the brief and the following lines:

Both districts’ ability to meet their desegregation obligations may be negatively affected by the loss of students and funding caused by the proliferation of open-enrollment charter schools in Pulaski County. First, open-enrollment charter schools may be negatively affecting the racial balance of PCSSD schools. The Arkansas State Board of Education (“State Board”) has failed to impose racial balance requirements for open-enrollment charter schools necessary to ensure compliance with the 1989 Settlement Agreement. As a result, open-enrollment charter schools are some of the most racially segregated schools in Pulaski County.

Fortunately for Heller, he does not define what he means by “racially segregated” and thus he is free to make any charge he wishes.  However, once we constrain his argument by employing any reasonable definition of racial segregation, the conclusion any sensible person would reach is the opposite.

Let’s back up for a minute … there is a history in the debate over various types of school choice (charters included) of questions surrounding the potential segregative effects of choice.  The concern, essentially, is that if school systems provide parents any form of choice over schooling, parents and families may choose to self-segregate and sign up for schools attended by other families who look like themselves.  And this, the argument continues, is less desirable than the integrated traditional public schools in which parents cannot make that choice.  This argument hinges on 3 assumptions:

1.  Segregation (racial and economic) is bad. Agreed.  We believe that kids are better off (all else equal) if they attend schools that are representative of the community as a whole and are not segregated.

2.  If given the choice, families will choose segregation. Not so fast.  This may be true, or it may not be true. We believe (but of course are not sure) that most parents will choose the school that they believe provides the best education for the students.

3.  Traditional public schools are racially integrated. In most cases, this is dead wrong. In most large public school systems, and certainly in Pulaski County, the traditional public schools are VERY segregated.  This is because, of course, public school enrollment zones are connected to residential zones, which generally “segregate” citizens by their financial ability to purchase a home in that neighborhood.  Thus, traditional public schools are generally not well-integrated, either economically or racially.

Back to Heller’s claim.  Heller seems to argue that charters are even more segregated than the traditonal schools.  Seems unlikely, but let’s check it out.

We’ll start by employing a very reasonable definition for racial integration and segregation.  Since Heller is discussing the county, we will define a school’s level of racial integration by how close it comes to the racial composition of the county as a whole.  In 2008-09, approximately 66% of the public school students are minority students and approximately 34% are white students.  So, a well-integrated school in Pulaski County would be one that is roughly 1/3 white and 2/3 minority because this is representative of the overall county demographics.

Using this straightforward and reasonable measure, we sorted all the Pulaski County public schools based on how far they deviated from this hypothetical perfectly integrated school.  What do we find? Well, Heller is right to say that the Academics Plus Charter School in Maumelle is one of the most highly segregated (2nd on our list).  He also cites Dreamland Academy which serves roughly 96% minority students.

Unfortunately, what Heller omits from his filing is even more problematic.  In fact, there are 9 — yes NINE — traditional public schools in Little Rock district alone that are MORE segregated than the Dreamland charter that Heller highlighted.  In each of these traditional public schools – Stephens, Franklin, Geyer Springs, Wakefield, Cloverdale, McClellan, Washington, Watson, and Wilson - more than 96% of the student body are minority students.  These schools were racially segregated before charters entered the picture and remain segregated today.

After this simple review of the demographics of the traditional public schools in Little Rock and beyond, we see that only 2 of the 25 most segregated schools in the county are charters.  A further look reveals that 2 of the county’s 5 best integrated schools are charters (eStem High School and LISA Academy)  Thus, it appears that we need to add a small qualifier to Heller’s claim that charters are some of the most racially segregated and the newer, more accurate wording, would go something like this:

As a result, open-enrollment charter schools are some of the most racially segregated schools in Pulaski County …. Except for nearly ALL of the traditional public schools in Pulaski County!

In the end, Heller’s argument would be funny, if it were not flat out dishonest.  How can he, with honesty or seriousness, claim that the racial integration in Pulaski County schools is due in any part to the relative handful of students (fewer than 5%) who have exited traditional public schools in favor public charter schools?

The answer is of course … He can’t … He CANNOT BE SERIOUS!

Update: The Dem-Gaz picks this story up here.  And Max Brantley strides into the fray in his typical accusatory-name calling style.