An Arkansas judge put a major education bill on hold while a procedural lawsuit goes forward.
Arkansas LEARNS is a 145-page law passed this year by the Arkansas legislature and signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Among many things, the law raises teacher starting salaries, gives parents money to enroll their children in private schools, and allows charter school companies to take over struggling school districts. The struggling Marvell-Elaine School District in east Arkansas entered into a contract with Friendship Charter shortly after the lawsuit was passed.
Attorney Ali Noland is representing Marvell-Elaine citizens who do not want the contract to go forward. Her challenge argues the law was unconstitutionally passed. When LEARNS moved through the legislature it was passed with an additional emergency clause tacked on to the bill, meaning it goes into effect immediately. Under the plain language of the constitution, emergency clauses should be voted on separately from bills. The Arkansas Legislature customarily votes on emergency clauses and bills at the same time records the votes separately.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herbert Wright temporarily stopped LEARNS over the lawsuit agreeing that the emergency clause was not passed correctly. Veronica McClane is from CAPES, an organization attempting to overturn LEARNS.
“This is about time,” she said “Time for them, gives them time to build community support to educate the community about what is going on, to look for better alternatives.”
Laurie Lee is the head of the Reform Alliance, a group that helped championed the bill. She believes the lawsuit is needlessly slowing down the inevitable passage of a law she supports.
“This is an expense to the taxpayers,” she said. “It's a distraction in the news, but most of all it's usurping the education system in Arkansas which is already languishing.”
She says the LEARNS Act will go into effect eventually.
The next hearing is scheduled for June 20.
