Bottom Graph: Screenshot from Arkansas DESE Website Showing Racial Breakdown of LRSD’s Entire Student Population
In 2014, the United States Departments of Justice and Education issued new guidance regarding racial equity in student discipline. Civil Rights Data Collection compiled by the Office of Civil Rights showed that “students of certain racial or ethnic groups tend to be disciplined more than their peers,” even when researchers control for other contributing factors besides race.
Well, that’s definitely true in Little Rock. Even if the people in charge don’t intend to be racist, their actions would never pass the “Disparate Impact” test.
by Mya Poe and John Aloysius Cogan Jr.
The DOJ/Ed letter goes on to address exclusionary discipline (suspensions and expulsions) specifically:
The increasing use of disciplinary sanctions such as in-school and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, or referrals to law enforcement authorities creates the potential for significant, negative educational and long-term outcomes, and can contribute to what has been termed the “school to prison pipeline.”
2014 “Dear Colleague” Letter
Reading this US DOJ/Ed letter got me curious. I’ve been writing about the “School to Prison Pipeline” in the Little Rock School District (LRSD,) gradually coming to the opinion that LRSD is framing children of color as “criminals” in order to protect violent, bad-acting adults. As an added bonus for the politicians in charge, this bad behavior also pads the pocketbooks of the private prisons that Governor Asa Hutchinson has invited into Arkansas.
What I Got and How I Got It
On September 19, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Superintendent Mike Poore, requesting “all records showing the racial demographics of LRSD students enrolled in Alternative Learning Environments (ALE,) Alternative Learning Communities (ALC,) and alternative-to-suspension programs for the 2017-18 school year, the 2018-19 school year, and for the 2019-20 school year thus far.”
At first, Student Services Director Freddie Fields (who has a history of unusual spending on LRSD credit cards, and seems to hold the Little Rock Police Department at arm’s length) only sent me this:
However, I wanted to see the individual behavior incidents and specific disciplinary actions taken each time. I persisted. Finally LRSD Executive Assistant Valerie Hudson responded with a 155-page spreadsheet showing all the details I had asked to see.
Alarmingly, Ms. Hudson also sent me a second, TOTALLY UNREDACTED copy of the same document. Releasing unredacted student educational records constitutes a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA.) This document shows 2,866 student records that should never have been released.
Once I scraped my jaw off the floor, I emailed Superintendent Poore and Education Johnny Secretary Key to notify them of a “Massive FERPA Violation.” The next day, LRSD’s staff attorney, Eric Walker, confirmed the mistake and “respectfully requested” that I destroy the document and not discuss it publicly.
I denied his request. However, I promised I wouldn’t publish them without redacting them first. Although I’m not bound by FERPA, I don’t want children’s school discipline records following them into adulthood every time they apply for a job.
I do want LRSD students, parents, and teachers to be able to check whose information got released, though, and whether the records were saved accurately. To that end, I asked the Rogue Coalition of Arkansas to help me develop a database that is searchable by Student ID number. Please check these records if you believe you know a child whose information was wrongfully released!
But don’t expect much. These discipline records are confusing and contradictory.
Contradictory Records Suggest Falsified Documents
Freddie Fields’ original, one-page spreadsheet shows 11 Hispanic/Latino students enrolled in ALE in 2019-20 thus far. However, Ms. Hudson’s 155-page spreadsheet (released 17 days later) shows zero students identified as Hispanic/Latino. Is this incompetence or deliberate malfeasance? Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the data.
Another problem with this data is the significant number of children who appear to be attending schools where they are not enrolled. For example: Student Z was assigned to Meadowcliff Elementary as his “home” school last school year, but was attending Chicot Elementary on January 22, 2019 when he got into a fight with another student. Which school gets the honor of claiming this violence, when it comes time to ask for federal handouts?
Who Benefits from Falsified Documents? Rich, White People with Political Agendas.
LRSD appears to be kiting student disciplinary records around its digital system to get extra federal Title IV money and further the Walton-funded “School Choice” political agenda. The DESE has declared 2019-20 its “Pilot Year” for “The Unsafe School Choice Option.” Even though the federal law requiring states to list its “persistently dangerous schools” is 20 years old, Arkansas has never identified any of its schools as “persistently dangerous” until this year.
Suddenly, Arkansas is trying to figure out which schools are “persistently dangerous” so that students assigned to “bad” schools can transfer to “good” schools within their district.
LRSD has the power to make schools look more dangerous than they really are, simply by assigning student disciplinary records to schools where those students don’t belong. “Dangerous” schools get first dibs on federal money. It’s a get-rich-quick scheme, though, since student transfers will likely leave the school “under-utilized,” and vulnerable to closure, sending disenfranchised children into the waiting arms of dangerously unregulated charter schools.
If LRSD is altering disciplinary student records to collect extra Title IV money and hasten the closure of schools in “bad” neighborhoods, that would fit with its apparent pattern of defrauding the federal government to get 21st Century grant money. It would support my theory that Governor Asa Hutchinson is scrambling to collect as much federal money as possible to offset his much-vaunted state tax cuts. It would also reassure the Walton family that Ambitious Asa is implementing their “school choice” agenda by any means necessary.
LRSD has been directly under the control of Education Secretary Johnny Key since 2015. The only person who can hold Key accountable for the bad actions of LRSD administrators under Key’s leadership is Asa Hutchinson, the man who appointed him. However, Governor Hutchinson remains stubbornly indifferent. The “failure” of LRSD gives Hutchinson the excuse to bust the teachers’ union and throw taxpayer money at interest-bearing loans the Walton family sells to charter school start-ups.
It’s a win for everybody except the children, teachers, and taxpayers of Arkansas.