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| Updated: 6/22/2012 7:26 pm |
Published: 6/22/2012 7:14 pm |
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A federal judge said Friday that he won't enforce a ruling that tossed out Arkansas' 1989 school choice law while appeals are pending.
A number of parties in the case had asked U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson to delay entering a final order barring transfers between districts.
Dawson ruled earlier this month that race couldn't be the only factor in deciding whether students could transfer. The judge found that racial questions were so deeply woven into the law that he had to throw out the entire statute, a decision that left thousands of families wondering where their children will attend school this fall.
An education commissioner's memo Friday said Dawson's decision to delay while appeals are pending means that the Arkansas Public School Choice Act can once again be relied upon and followed as written. The education department says it will continue to update school district leaders concerning the status of the case.
The judge's decision to toss out the school choice law came after a group of parents in Malvern sued the state, claiming that it was wrong for education officials to bar their children from entering the adjacent Magnet Cove School District.
The students were not allowed to transfer under the law that prohibits transfers into districts where the percentage of the student's race is higher than the percentage in the student's resident district. The children in the case are white and the Malvern district is 60 percent white, while Magnet Cove is 95 percent white.
The Malvern parents said they should be given the option of putting their children in the school of their choice, but Dawson said the state's reliance on racial matters violates the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The state has 468,000 public school students, and about 15,000 children attend schools in non-resident districts.
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