Jeff Bryant, director of the Education Opportunity Network, writes in depth for AlterNet, the national progressive website, about the Little Rock School District in great detail — the desegregation struggle, the politics and the district’s recent targeting for destruction by the heirs of a discount store fortune.
Headline:
Charter Schools and the Waltons Take Little Rock Back to its Segregated Past
In many ways, it’s 1957 all over again.
Funny. That’s similar to the essence of my column this week, inspired by the high irony of concurrent events last week: A panel on 1957 desegregation at Central High School was held at the same time the state Board of Education ignored federal courts and approved school district transfers that will lead to resegregation (cheered in the vote on social media by Gary Newton, a paid lobbyist for the Walton Family Foundation and nephew of state Board of Education member Diane Zook, typically a champion of anti-LRSD actions and leader of the vote to ignore the federal court.)
My column is not on the web yet.