At least two states, Utah and Texas, are seeking a federal waiver of the law that requires school districts to promptly enroll homeless students, so that Hurricane Katrina evacuees can legally be schooled in shelters, on closed military bases, and in other settings where they are being housed.

According to an article "Separate But Equal? Schooling of Evacuees Provokes Debate" in the Wall Street Journal, the states are getting a sympathetic hearing from the Department of Education.

Thousands of young evacuees are already enrolled in public schools across the country, thanks in large part to the McKinney-Vento Act, landmark federal legislation barring the segregation of homeless children. And, after nearly 600 evacuees landed at Camp Williams in Utah, schools in nearby Jordan were ready to do their bit.

But the Journal reports that Pamela Atkinson, a special consultant to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., had other ideas. The displaced families had experienced "so much trauma, anxiety and separation" that the parents "wanted their children close by," said Ms. Atkinson. "Since we had classrooms at Camp Williams, it made more sense to keep them there."

Not surprisingly, given the way Katrina roiled the waters on issues of class and race, civil rights groups aren't taking such expressions of concern at face value, wondering if this has more to do with keeping minority students out of overwhelmingly white Utah schools. From afar, it's hard to tell, but Atkinson's argument would carry more weight if I were to hear the parents of these youngsters, or even better from the students themselves, that they would really prefer temporary schools in shelters.

On the face of it, it's hard to see why it would be healthier for children to be in makeshift facilities, all traumatized together, with teachers hired on the fly, rather than in operating schools with active social, athletic and cultural activities and with real ties to the community where they find themselves for what could be quite a long time.

There's no doubt that absorbing large numbers of displaced students will be very tough, especially on states like Texas, which have taken in large numbers. But it seems like the federal government could find other ways to ease the burden on the states than by increasing the isolation of children who have lost so much. Interestingly, Mississippi, which has also taken in large numbers of evacuees, has not asked for McKinney-Vento to be relaxed in any way.