In a major ruling for school integration, the 11th Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruled that Gardendale can’t split away to form its own district because its motives were to resegregate.
“A federal appeals court ruled today that Gardendale can’t form its own school system and agreed with a judge’s finding that racial motives were involved in the attempt to split from the Jefferson County system.
“It’s a ruling Gardendale plans to appeal.
“The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala rescind the part of her order from last year that allowed Gardendale to secede over a three-year period from Jefferson County schools and form its own system.
“Circuit Judge William Pryor, a former Alabama Attorney General, wrote the opinion.
“The district court (Haikala) found that the Gardendale Board acted with a discriminatory purpose to exclude black children from the proposed school system and, alternatively, that the secession of the Gardendale Board would impede the efforts of the Jefferson County Board to fulfill its desegregation obligations,” according to the 11th Circuit opinion. “Despite these findings, the district court devised and permitted a partial secession that neither party requested.”
This is a major setback to the movement for resegregation.
It is a relief to see a federal court once again defending justice.
Now, on to the U.S. Supreme Court, which once ruled consistently to uphold the Brown decision but has backed away recently.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The segregationists (I would call them neo, but they’ve always been around) will now attempt to figure out how to use and twist words so that they get what they want-duplicitous bastards that they are.
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it might not be directly to Supreme Court. Having lost with the 3 judge panel Gardendale can request a rehearing en banc, that is, before all the judges of the Circuit, that is, the 11 active judges in the 11th Circuit
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So far, this is a move in the right direction. I hope that this and other efforts are stopped cold. There is enough resegregation going on nationally, aided and abetted by big money flowing to charter schools.
For those who have an interest, the current issue of Educational Researcher tracks the geographic flow of money from 15 major foundations to various states, with the Walton Family leading the pack and hitting up 26 states, followed by the Louis Calder Foundation (10 states) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (10 states).
Overall the charter enthusiasts were most eager to take over education in the states of New York (11 foundations), California (7 foundations), and Louisiana (5 foundations). The study addresses some echo chamber effects from CREDO and other reports–not peer reviewed, and RTTT grants that expanded “choice.”
Maps show the distribution of charter funding by state, including the dollars per charter school student and aggregated “investments ” in states for several years. The authors used the 990 IRS forms for much of their research. The study reveals the extent to which “private wealth is shaping public education in the United States” ( p. 43).
Vol 47, No 1. pp. 34-45. January February, 2018. “Converging on Choice: The Interstate Flow of Foundation Dollars to Charter School Organizations.” Joseph J. Ferrare University of Kentucky and R.Renee Setari (a measurement and evaluation specialist with the National Geographic Society).
Another article traces “American Educators’ Confrontation with Fascism” from 1922 to 1941. The opening frames the discussion around President Donald Trump’s exploitative use of “fake news” and unfounded claims.
Another study addresses the sources and levels of instability in staffing Texas schools, with clear evidence that the most instability is in schools with high- poverty, high minority, and “low performing” schools. There are not many surprises but the study makes a useful distinction between chronic churn in staffing versus episodic events with some time for reduced churn.
Some wiggly charts in another article show changes in the levels of “stringent” compliance with AYP reporting under NCLB That is put together with some some imaginative graphs of “simulated failure rates” and public opinion about NCLB 2001- 2011. The authors are fans of “high quality information for improvement and innovation.” They are not happy that ESSA has no provision for federal accountability AYP — “Adequate Yearly Progress.” The absence of required AYP reports in ESSA messes up their stream of data for “simulated failure rates”and catching states with insufficiently stringent compliance. My snark is intentional. I am not a fan of researchers who churn “invented” data.
So… that is how I spent some time this afternoon, self-imposed continuing education.
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