A U.S. district judge has dismissed claims made in a lawsuit that state leaders were racially motivated when they took control of the Little Rock district and dissolved its school board.
The lawsuit was filed against Arkansas education Commissioner Johnny Key, the Arkansas board of education, and then-Little Rock Superintendent Baker Kurrus. It challenged the January 2015 state takeover of the Little Rock district because six of its 48 schools were rated by the state as academically distressed and because of the expansion of charter schools in the district. The academically distressed status was the result of low student achievement on state math and literacy tests over a three-year period.
The court ruled that the plaintiffs, two school board members who were removed and a group of black students and their families, hadn’t offered enough facts showing a plausible racial motivation behind any of the decisions.
