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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>August 6, 2007</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3 color="#990000">A Special Report on
Katrina & Education<br><br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>Experimenting on Someone Else's Children
<br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#990000">
Fighting for the Right to Learn in New
Orleans</b></font></h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3>By BILL
QUIGLEY <br><br>
<br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="Verdana" size=2>“Of all the civil rights for which the
world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is
undoubtedly the most fundamental…The freedom to learn…has been bought by
bitter sacrifice. And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other
civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to
learn.”<br><br>
<dd>W.E.B. DuBois, “The Freedom to Learn.” (1949)<br><br>
</i>
<dd>"Education is the property of no one. It belongs to the people
as a whole. And if education is not given to the people, they will have
to take it."<br><br>
<dd>Che Guevara<br><br>
</i>
<dd>""We wanted charter schools to open and take the majority
of the students. That didn't happen, and now we have the responsibility
of educating the 'leftover' children."<br><br>
<dd>Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary School Member (2007)
<br><br>
</i></font>
</dl><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">T</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>here is a massive experiment being performed
on thousands of primarily African American children in New Orleans. No
one asked the permission of the children. No one asked permission of
their parents. This experiment involves a fight for the education of
children. <br><br>
This is the experiment. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The First
Half</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Half of the nearly 30,000 children
expected to enroll in the fall of 2007 in New Orleans public schools have
been enrolled in special public schools, most called charter schools.
These schools have been given tens of millions of dollars by the federal
government in extra money, over and above their regular state and local
money, to set up and operate. These special public schools are not open
to every child and do not allow every student who wants to attend to
enroll. Some charter schools have special selective academic criteria
which allow them to exclude children in need of special academic help.
Other charter schools have special admission policies and student and
parental requirements which effectively screen out many children.
<br><br>
The children in this half of the experiment are taught by accredited
teachers in manageable sized classes. There are no overcrowded classes
because these charter schools have enrollment caps which allow them to
turn away students. These schools also educate far fewer students with
academic or emotional disabilities. Children in charter schools are in
better facilities than the other half of the children. <br><br>
These schools are getting special grants from Laura Bush to rebuild their
libraries and grants from other foundations to help them educate. These
schools do educate some white children along with African American
children. These are public schools, but they are not available to all the
public school students.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The Other
Half</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The other half of public school
students, over ten thousand children, have been assigned to a one year
old experiment in public education run by the State of Louisiana called
the “Recovery School District” (RSD) program. The education these
children receive will be compared to the education received by the first
half in the charter schools. These children are effectively what is
called the “control group” of an experiment – those against whom the
others will be evaluated.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The RSD schools have not been given
millions of extra federal dollars to operate. The new RSD has
inexperienced leadership. Many critical vacancies exist in their already
insufficient district-wide staff. Many of the teachers are uncertified.
In fact, the RSD schools do not yet have enough teachers, even counting
the uncertified, to start school in the fall of 2007. Some of the RSD
school buildings scheduled to be used for the fall of 2007 have not yet
been built.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>In the first year of this experiment,
the RSD had one security guard for every 37 students. Students at John
McDonough High said their RSD school, which employed more guards than
teachers, had a “prison atmosphere.” In some schools, children spent long
stretches of their school days in the gymnasium waiting for teachers to
show up to teach them.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>There is little academic or emotional
counseling in the RSD schools. Children with special needs suffer from
lack of qualified staff. College prep math and science classes and
language immersion are rarely offered. Class rooms keep filling up as new
children return back to New Orleans and are assigned to RSD schools.
<br><br>
Many of the RSD schools do not have working kitchens or water fountains.
Bathroom facilities are scandalous – teachers at one school report there
are two bathrooms for the entire school, one for all the male students,
faculty and staff and another for all the females in the building. <br>
Danatus King, of the NAACP in New Orleans, said “What happened last year
was a tragedy. Many of the city’s children were denied an education last
year because of a failure to plan on the part of the RSD.” <br><br>
Hardly any white children attend this half of the school
experiment.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>These are the public schools available
to the rest of the public school students.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Who Started This
Experiment <br><br>
</b></font>After Katrina, groups in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and
Washington DC saw an opportunity to radically restructure public
education in New Orleans and turn many public schools into publicly
funded charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that
have far more freedom to select the children they admit, more freedom in
the way they operate, and more freedom in the hiring and firing of
teachers. <br><br>
This experiment has been controversial from the beginning. <br><br>
Some people are very critical. According to a recent report on this
experiment by New Orleans teachers, right after Katrina “a well-organized
and well-financed national network of charter school advocates hastened
the conversion of public schools by waiving previous requirements.”
Without input from parents or teachers, these folks engaged in what the
teachers called a “massive takeover experiment with the children of New
Orleans at a time when most parents and students were widely dispersed in
other parishes and states.” See
<a href="http://www.aft.org/presscenter/releases/downloads/NoExperReport_07.pdf">
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: How the New Orleans Takeover Experiment Devalues
Experienced Teachers</a>,” June 2007, (hereafter New Orleans Teachers
Report).<font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Supporters like Governor Blanco hailed
the experiment as "an opportunity to do something incredible."
Others agreed. "We are using this as an opportunity to take what was
one of the worst school systems around and create one of the best and
most competitive school systems in America," said Walter Isaacson,
vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "This is an
unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the school system the way it should
be," says Scott Cowen, president of Tulane University. The Tulane
Scott Cowen Institute and other supporters have authored their own report
on the experiment,
<a href="http://www.stateofnolaschools.org/NO_FINAL.pdf">STATE OF PUBLIC
EDUCATION IN NEW ORLEANS</a>, June 2007, (hereafter the Cowen
Report).</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">How Government Created
This Experiment</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>This experiment was started and
approved while students and parents were not around to participate in the
decision. Before Katrina, the process of creating a charter school was
legally required to first have the approval of parents and teachers.
Supporters of this experiment, many if not most of who do not have
children in public schools, repeatedly argue that this experiment creates
“choice” for at least half the parents and students. The irony is that
few parents had any choice at all in creating the experiment involving
their children. <br><br>
The very first public school converted to a charter was done on September
15, 2005, while almost all the city remained closed to residents. The
school board did not even hold the meeting in New Orleans. <br><br>
While President Bush may have been slow to react in other areas after the
storm, he made a bold push right after Katrina to help convert public
schools to charters. <br><br>
On September 30, 2005, the U.S. Department of Education pledged $20.9
million to Louisiana for post-Katrina charter schools. The federal
government offered no comparable funding to reestablish traditional
neighborhood or district schools. <br><br>
In early October 2005, Governor Blanco issued an executive order which
waived state laws which required faculty and parent approval to convert a
regular public school to a charter school. The Orleans School Board then
used this waiver to convert all 13 schools in the less-flooded Algiers
community of New Orleans to charter schools without parent or teacher
approval.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Then all four thousand public school
teachers in New Orleans, members of the largest union in Louisiana, were
fired – along with support staff.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The rest of the takeover was
accomplished in November 2005 under new rules enacted by the Louisiana
legislature. All this while most of the families of public school
students remained displaced, many hundreds of miles
away.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The New Orleans Teachers Report
complained that “Proponents of the New Orleans takeover experiment
created the false impression that the hurricane forced the state takeover
or that a fair and uniform accountability system led to the state’s
action. <br><br>
In fact, the state changed the rules and targeted New Orleans schools in
an attempt to convert all schools to charter status, not just the failing
ones. Most charter schools are pre-existing schools that were converted
to charter status. After the mass charter school conversions in the three
months following Katrina, the RSD…authorized only three more charters….Of
the 12 schools, the operation of all but three have been given to
providers who are based out of state.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Many foundations are contributing
large sums of money to the experiment. <br><br>
For example, the Laura Bush Foundation has generously donated millions of
dollars to rebuild school libraries in schools along the gulf coast. Her
foundation has given tens of thousands of dollars in grants to rebuild
the libraries of 13 schools in New Orleans – 8 of which are charter
schools and 5 are private catholic schools. Not one is a RSD regular
public school.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">How the Experiment
Actually Operates</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>With a few exceptions, the state of
Louisiana essentially now controls the public school system in New
Orleans. There is little local control. The state has subcontracted much
of the work of education to willing charter schools. <br><br>
Of the public schools operating at the end of the 2006-2007 academic
year, educating 57 percent of public school students, were
charters.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>This makes New Orleans the urban
district with by far the highest proportion of publicly funded charter
schools in the nation. Dayton Ohio has the second highest concentration
of charter schools involving 30% of its 17,000
students.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>This experiment has resulted in a
clearly defined two-tier public school system. <br><br>
The top tier is made up of the best public and charter public schools,
which most children cannot get into, and a number of new and promising
charter public schools that are available for the industrious and
determined parents of children who do not have academic or emotional
disabilities. <br><br>
The second tier is for the rest of the children. Their education is
assigned to the RSD (some are already calling it “The Rest of the School
District”). <br><br>
The top half of the schools are the point of this experiment in public
charter schools. National charter school advocacy groups are pointing to
New Orleans as the experiment which will demonstrate that publicly funded
charter schools are superior to public schools. <br><br>
However, the top half could not work without the bottom half. If the
schools in the top half had to accept the students assigned to the second
tier schools, the results of the experiment would obviously turn out
quite differently. As the experiment is structured, students in the
bottom half schools will be very useful to compare with the top half to
see how well this works.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>While some sympathize with the
children in the bottom half, little has been done to assist those in the
RSD schools. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">How the Top Half
Operates</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Start with the money. Charter schools
have more of it than the RSD schools.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Each charter school is given a share
of the federal $20.9 million dollar grant. None of that money is
available to non-charter public schools. <br><br>
As the Cowen report notes, charter public schools also have advantages
other than just financial ones over other the rest of the public schools.
Though funded by tax dollars, charters are granted greater autonomy over
staffing budgeting and curriculum than regular public schools. Charters
have better facilities, fewer problems attracting staff and can keep
school class size small. <br><br>
Charters are allowed to impose enrollment caps. These caps allow them to
turn down additional students who seek to enroll. This keeps pupil
teacher ratios down and class sizes small – a universally recognized key
to academic achievement. <br><br>
Some of the top tier public schools have explicit selective enrollment
policies which screen out children with academic problems. Most of the
remaining charters are technically supposed to be open enrollment schools
but require pre-application essays, parental-involvement requirements and
specific behavior contracts – allowing these charter schools the
flexibility to “manage” their incoming classes, rather than having to
accept every student who applies. At nine schools, traditional public
school transportation is not even provided, further limiting the
choices.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>A look at Algiers charter school
association (ACSA) website illustrates how schools in the top half
operate. <br><br>
Financially, the ACSA budget reports expenditures of $27 million in
2006-2007, leaving an apparent surplus of $11 million. For 2005-2006, the
ACSA was given $2.5 million from Orleans Parish School Board ($500 per
student over and above their regular funding), a $6 million federal
charter school grant, plus the state minimum foundation funds. <br><br>
That is not all the extra money. The ACSA has also received several major
grants. For example, in June of 2007, the ACSA was awarded a special
$999,000 federal grant to help improve learning in American history. In
March, 2007, Baptist Community Ministries announced a $4.2 million grant
to create a network among the charter schools. <br><br>
The ACSA website includes their application process, which specifically
spells out that student applicants will NOT be considered “on a first
come first serve basis.” Decisions on whether an applicant is allowed to
attend will be based on several factors, including scores on state
examinations and whether applicant has ever received any special
education services for a learning disability or emotional disturbance.
<br><br>
Many of the other charter schools also benefit from special funds and
special admissions policies. One of the most selective public charter
schools, Lusher charter school, received millions extra in special grants
from Tulane University, FEMA, the State of Louisiana, a German Foundation
which gave $1.1 million to renovate the gymnasium, and other
foundations.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Wouldn’t every returning student like
to enroll in one of these schools? <br><br>
Students returning to New Orleans who might seek to enroll in one of the
top half schools are likely to be disappointed as the deadline for
enrollment at most of the charter schools has already passed. For
example, applications to enroll in Lusher charter for this fall were due
December 15, 2006.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">How the Rest of the
School District Operates</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>By law, the RSD is required to accept
any student who shows up and is prohibited from having any selective
admissions policy.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>From the beginning, Louisiana
officials charged with making policy and operating the RSD complained
that they were being left with educating the “leftover children” after
the charters and the selective schools took the children with the best
academic scores and best parental involvement. <br>
Damon Hewitt, a civil rights attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, and a New Orleans native, discovered the reference to
“leftovers” in an email sent by one of Louisiana’s top education policy
makers. The email is from Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education (BESE) member Glenny Lee Buquet. She wrote in an internal BESE
e-mail in January 2007, obtained by Hewitt in a federal case, “We wanted
charter schools to open and take the majority of the students. That
didn't happen, and now we have the responsibility of educating the
'leftover' children."</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Who are the leftover children in the
RSD? Hewitt again: “The students served by the RSD are typically those
who could not get into any of the fancy charter or selective admissions
schools. They are the average New Orleans students - talented, creative
and bright, but locked in poverty and out of
opportunity.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The average New Orleanian child is our
child. These children are the children of our sisters and brothers and
cousins and coworkers. Yet they are categorized as, and treated like,
something quite different by people in charge of public education.
<br><br>
The RSD has not been up to the job of educating New Orleans children
because, from day one and continuing until today, it lacked the
appropriate number and quality of people and the expertise to run a big
urban school system.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>One of the best illustrations of the
problems of the RSD is their refusal to admit hundreds of returning New
Orleans children to public schools in January of 2007. Instead, the RSD
put these kids on a “waiting list.” Public outcry and two federal
lawsuits forced a quick reversal and the kids were put into RSD schools.
<br><br>
At the same time as the RSD put kids on a waiting list, “Thousands of
empty seats and dozens of empty classrooms could be found in charter
schools or in the city’s selective or discretionary-admissions public
schools” the New Orleans Teachers Report points out. <br><br>
So why was there a problem? There was space for these kids in the charter
public schools. But because the public charter schools are allowed to cap
their enrollment they did not have to admit any new children. In reality,
the main reason there was a problem was not space, but a shortage of
teachers willing to work for the RSD.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Is it any surprise that the
disorganized and under-staffed RSD was having problems finding teachers
for their schools? <br><br>
The New Orleans teachers report indicate many veteran teachers remain
furious at the State of Louisiana and its RSD because they were fired and
their right to collective bargaining was terminated. Teachers point out
that veteran teachers hired in adjoining districts continue to enjoy
collective bargaining along with the rest of the teachers. But not in New
Orleans. Uncertified teachers were widespread in RSD schools. <br><br>
In fact, certified teachers from around the country who wanted to help by
teaching in New Orleans were directed by the Teach for NOLA recruitment
website to charter schools. Uncertified teachers were directed to the
RSD.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The RSD was still 500 teachers short
at the time this article was written. In July of 2007, the RSD ran a
$400,000 national campaign to try to hire an additional 500 teachers to
start in the fall. The RSD is offering up $17,300 in relocation and other
incentives to try to get teachers into the system. If there are any
teachers reading this, please come and help the children in the RSD out –
you are desperately needed! <br><br>
As of July, the RSD was also working furiously to erect temporary modular
buildings to house children when school starts in the fall. Meanwhile,
neighboring St. Bernard Parish opened school in temporary school
buildings two months after Katrina – nearly two years ago. <br><br>
An indication of the fragmentation of the system are the many starting
dates for New Orleans public schools. Some charter schools will start
August 6, another on the 8th. Five start August 14, others in mid to late
August. The two dozen or so RSD schools will open September 4 – in part
to give more time to build new schools to open and to recruit teachers.
<br><br>
During 2006-2007 school security became a top issue. Consider the
experiment of placing thousands of recently traumatized and frequently
displaced children into schools without enough teachers or staff or
facilities. Consider also that those who are charged with supervising the
schools are inexperienced and understaffed as well. The logical outcome
of such an experiment is insecurity.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The RSD spent $20 million on security.
They had one security guard for every 37 students in 2006-2007, a rate
nine times higher than the old public school security system. At one
point there were 35 guards at RSD John McDonough Senior High plus two
off-duty police officers. Thirty two guards started at another school in
the fall. <br><br>
This situation quickly prompted the Fyre Youth Squad, a group of high
school students in New Orleans, to challenge the “prison atmosphere” at
John McDonough High. There were more security guards than teachers at
their school.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>What impact does this have on
education of children? Research shows that students feel more tense when
they encounter security guards at every turn in a school, said Monique
Dixon, a senior attorney at the Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.
civil rights organization that works with community groups on issues such
as school discipline. "It becomes more of a prison on some levels
where people feel they are being watched constantly instead of feeling
protected," she said. "It creates a police
state."</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The financial implications of spending
money this way are also troubling. While New Orleans spent $20 million on
private security for around 50 schools, the New Orleans Times-Picayune
reported that the Philadelphia public school security budget for more
than 260 schools was about $47 million, which included a 450-member
independent police force, 150 auxiliary officers, and partnerships with
more than 200 community members. In Detroit, the budget this fiscal year
for the 400-member independent police force that protects the public
schools, which has more than 100,000 students and more than 200 schools,
was about $16 million.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Controlling students sometimes
appeared to take priority over educating students.</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Damon Hewitt points out that “the line
between criminal justice policy and education got much blurrier over the
past year and a half, as local schools have resorted to increasingly
punitive approaches to school discipline. Relying more on police officers
than community engagement, school officials' harsh responses to
challenging behavior mirror public fear and sentiment about crime in the
city. As a result, more children end up being suspended, expelled and
arrested and sent to juvenile court. This phenomenon, which some call the
School-to-Prison Pipeline, is literally robbing New Orleans of its most
valuable asset - people.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“Some say that children in New Orleans
are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” continues Hewitt.
“But they are really suffering from the impact of Continuing Trauma -
trauma that plays itself out every day. To the extent that children do
act out present challenging behavior in schools, a lot of it has to do
with both this continuing trauma and unmet educational needs, especially
for those students in need of special education and related services. We
cannot suspend, expel and arrest our way out of this problem. In fact,
those harsh responses only make things worse by depriving young people of
much-needed educational opportunity.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The academic results measured by
standardized test scores given in spring 2007 at the RSD schools were
predictably low. Nearly half the students failed in most 4th and 8th
grade categories. Two-thirds of high school students failed in the
Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) and Graduate Exit Exam
(GEE). The selective public schools had only an 18 percent failure rate
on the GEE. LEAP scores for individual schools reported during the summer
show what most expected, charter schools test better than RSD schools.
<br><br>
One current public school teacher, name withheld for reasons that will be
obvious, was not hopeful. <br><br>
“The public schools are totally fragmented. The struggles are still the
same. Students still have difficult situations at home, some are still in
trailers or living with too many people in one small home.” <br><br>
“Schools still lack books and materials, which I don't understand. After
Katrina there were so many offers of help, both physical and monetary. I
don't think that the people in charge knew what to do to organize a
decent response to the offers.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“The RSD schools lack enough qualified
and experienced teachers. The state Department of Education is well
intentioned but they are barely dealing with the day to day issues and
they still need to open more schools as people come back to the city.”
<br><br>
“Yes, it sounds dismal. I don't see any big changes for next year. I
think many of the charter schools have promise. The charters usually have
a committed administration and staff and frequently a committed parent
body. That is the secret to success.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Leigh Dingerson of the Center for
Community Change in Washington DC, who has been researching the New
Orleans schools after Katrina, sums up the problems with the New Orleans
experiment. <br><br>
“In the 18 months since Hurricane Katrina, the infrastructure of the New
Orleans public schools has been systematically dismantled and a new
tangle of independently operated educational experiments has been erected
in its place. This new structure has taken away community control and
community ownership of all but a handful of schools. Instead, independent
charter management organizations - virtually all from outside the state -
are now running 60 percent of New Orleans schools.”</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“There are no more neighborhood
boundaries. In a market-based model, parents are considered ‘customers.’
And they’re supposed to ‘choose’ where to send their kids to school. But
since every one of the charter schools was filled to capacity, hundreds
of parents had no choice at all for their kids.” <br><br>
“Hundreds of kids with disabilities (who are often turned away from
charter schools) are being placed in the under-resourced and
over-burdened state-run Recovery School District. It’s their only
choice.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“This Balkanized school system is not
closing a gap. It’s opening a chasm.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The Cowen Report survey of the
community agrees with much of the Digerson analysis finding that “for
many in the community, the RSD-operated schools are viewed as an
unofficial ‘dumping ground’ for students with behavioral or academic
challenges.” <br><br>
All indicators conclude that the RSD overall has done a poor job
educating all the thousands of children in their half of the experiment,
especially those with disabilities, because of RSD’s own lack of
expertise and experienced staff and because the schools they supervise
lack the necessary teachers, support staff, and resources. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Possible Positive
Results of this Experiment</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Given the disastrous start to this
experiment, at least for half the children in public schools in New
Orleans, are there any positive results possible?</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Supporters of the experiment
rightfully point out the dismal state of public education in New Orleans
prior to Katrina. The public school system had a few elite schools that
had some racial mixing in their student body, while most of the rest of
the schools were underperforming even by Louisiana standards. Outside of
the elite schools, the population of the student body at almost all
schools was nearly one hundred percent
African-American.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Teachers valued teaching in the elite
public schools because they had less turnover, students with better test
scores, solid parental involvement and more access to additional
resources. There was widespread corruption resulting in over 20
convictions of school board officials or employees. While the national
average term for a public school system superintendent was three years,
from 1998 to 2005 the New Orleans average was 11 months. <br><br>
At this point in the experiment, it is fair to conclude that the New
Orleans public schools are still divided into some racially mixed elite
and charter schools, while the other half of the schools must be
classified as underperforming and nearly one hundred percent
African-American. <br><br>
On the other hand, supporters hope that this experiment will show the way
to improve public education. It very likely will, at least for the half
of the children fortunate enough to get into the top tier schools.
<br><br>
Politically, the real winners in this experiment are almost guaranteed to
be those who back the idea of charter schools. <br><br>
The New Orleans experiment offers tremendous opportunities for backers of
charter schools. Up to now, charter schools have not proven superior to
regular public schools. For example, in a 2004 Report
“<a href="http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/pcsp-final/execsum.html">
Evaluation of the Public Charter Schools Program,</a>” the U.S.
Department of Education study of charter schools in five states found
“charter schools were somewhat less likely than traditional public
schools” to meet state performance standards - but cautioned that the
study was unable “to determine whether traditional public schools are
more effective than charters.” <br><br>
But in New Orleans, where the best public schools have been converted
into charters and the kids most in need of good schools have been
systematically excluded from the top half of the public schools and
placed into a dysfunctional system – the charter schools in the upper
half are guaranteed to demonstrate better educational outcomes than what
education officials call the “leftover” public
schools.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>If charter schools cannot prove
themselves superior with this New Orleans deck stacked in their favor,
they should quit and go home.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Apart from charter school backers are
there others who are likely to see positive outcomes? <br><br>
A real positive outcome would be if the experiment could translate the
advantages of the top half of the selective schools into success for the
rest of the public school children as well. There is little evidence of
that happening at this time. <br><br>
The creators of this experiment acknowledge that a large percentage of
the children are being left out. "The bottom line is we are very
hopeful about this system of school models that is emerging, and we are
showing a lot of progress," said Tulane University President Scott
S. Cowen. "But we still have challenges to overcome to fulfill that
vision." <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Negative Possibilities
of This Experiment</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Twice as many people in New Orleans
think the public school system is worse now than those who think it is
better, according to the Cowen Report. <br><br>
Tracie Washington, civil rights and education attorney and head of the
new Louisiana Justice Institute, points out the differences in the
schools that she has heard about from hundreds of families. <br><br>
“Think about the fact that we had parents who had the misfortune of
sending their children to schools in two different systems -- RSD and a
charter. Now if your daughter attended Lusher charter or Audubon charter,
they always had hot meals, clean toilets, books, library, certified
teachers, after school activities, AND NO ARMED GUARDS AT THE SCHOOL
SITE. Your son had the misfortune of attending RSD schools like Raboin
High School, or Clark, or John McDonogh. No books, cold food, essentially
an armed encampment. Same family – same mom and dad, same home
environment; but the daughter is treated like a student and the son is
treated like an inmate at the State Penitentiary at Angola. Actually,
they are treated better at Angola because there's a library and hot food
is served!”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>While the Cowen Report underscores the
importance of saving the RSD, there has been no determined or
comprehensive community or political attempt to rescue the RSD nor the
thousands of children assigned to it. <br><br>
There is a cruel point in this experiment. Unfortunately, if the RSD
continues to do poorly, that makes the selective charter schools appear
even more successful. Thus the worse the RSD performs, the better the
charters look. Those who have access to the top half will push ahead,
those who do not will fall further behind.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Danatus King of the New Orleans NAACP
says many think the public education system is intentionally designed by
those with economic power to keep other people’s children under-educated.
“If you keep them uneducated, you can control them easier. There is a
power structure in New Orleans that has existed for hundreds of years.
They don’t want to see it changed because if it’s changed then it is
going to hit them in their pockets. It is going to be hard to keep those
hotel and restaurant workers from unionizing and demanding more money and
better working conditions. It is going to be more difficult to attract
folks to that industry when they are well educated and have other
opportunities. If you keep them uneducated, you can control them
easier.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>National critics like the Center for
Community Change complain “The Bush Administration was instrumental in
creating this new chasm between the “haves” and the “have nots” in New
Orleans. Rather than create the world-class public schools that all New
Orleans kids have deserved for so long, the Bush Administration invested
in an ideological experiment to make a pro-privatization, anti-public
education statement.” <br><br>
“In a school system based on free market principles, schools become
individual contestants – for the best teachers, for the best students,
for the most resources, and of course…for the best test scores. They can
only do this because they are not required to provide access to every
student within their community.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“There must be, backing up every large
scale charter system, the schools for the children…who are “un-chosen” by
charter schools.” <br><br>
“The very existence of charter schools in New Orleans, at this point, is
dependent on the availability of a universal access network of schools
alongside it. And those schools, the schools with the state run Recovery
School District, are struggling with more than their share of kids with
disabilities and less than their share of teachers and resources. To win,
there must be losers.” <br><br>
Thus, the failures of the RSD will make supporters of charter and other
restrictive admission schools appear even more successful. So where in
this experiment is the incentive to make sure that the half of the kids
left out have a fighting chance for a decent education? <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The Future of the
Experiment</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Where does the experiment go from
here? The RSD is supposed to return control of the public schools to
local control after five years. Charter schools are supposed to only be
chartered for five years. What happens in the next five years? No one
knows. Really. No one knows. And if no one knows, then the likelihood of
the left behind continuing to be left behind is extremely high. <br><br>
Parents do not need five years. They already know which half of the
experiment they want their children to participate in. Will the powers
who created this experiment dedicate what is left of their five years to
try to create a system where ALL children have choices of quality
education, or will the underserved half of the schools remain as a
control group for the privileged schools? <br><br>
The Cowen Report, overall supportive and hopeful for the experiment,
admits "There is no system-wide responsibility, accountability,
vision or leadership to guide the transformation of all public schools
for all New Orleans students," and no "unified, widely-endorsed
vision or plan" exists to chart transformation of the entire public
school system. <br><br>
Will race and economic segregation increase or decrease as a result of
this experiment? <br><br>
Tracie Washington, speaking both as a civil rights attorney and parent,
thinks any future success for all children will only come through serious
struggle. <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“What we need - to repair the New Orleans Public Schools systems
(plural) and, indeed, the public hospital, the public housing, the
criminal justice system, and our system of worker rights - is vision,
opportunity, and resolve. <br><br>
<dd>“Our vision must embrace the entire community in the plans to rebuild
a state of the art school system. White folks don't send their children
to public schools, so stop going to them for advice.” <br><br>
<dd>“Our opportunity requires that those in power release the resources
for our community to fulfill its vision for public schools.” <br><br>
<dd>“And we need to demonstrate resolve. Resolve is what the community
must stand together with as we demand the right to an education for all
our children. We have to resolve that we will fight, we will scream, we
will holla, we will call out your family, we will stop the economic
engine of this entire city from running (yes, the entire city), until our
children are given a fighting chance for a decent education.”<br><br>
</dl>The New Orleans Teachers Report insists that the dual and unequal
systems of schools in the city which intensify the educational
disparities that existed before Katrina must cease. They call on
policymakers to provide more physical classroom space and educational
materials for every student, and provide the best qualified teachers
possible for every child. Families must be able to send their children to
a neighborhood school charter or not that is staffed by qualified,
mostly experienced teachers. Finally they ask that teachers and their
unions be made full partners in the rebuilding and revitalization
effort.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The Cowen Report’s recommendations
seems to start modestly, but perhaps not. Their first recommendation?
Make sure everyone can get into a public school this year. Other
suggestions include: making sure all students have access to diverse
high-quality options; limiting enrollment barriers and open access
schools in every neighborhood; fair distribution of resources to all
schools; strengthen the RSD and create a process to return public schools
to local control; get high quality principals, teachers and staff;
support excellence at all schools; and create short and long-term plans
for action.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Two huge groups of kids are notably
missing from all the official and unofficial plans for the future of the
experiment – the newly arrived children of thousands of Latino workers,
and much larger group – the tens of thousands of those still displaced
who want to return. While there is little current accurate information on
either of these groups of children, they are absolutely at risk in this
experiment. And they are unjustly being left out of public policy debates
about the future of public education in New Orleans.</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Signs of
Hope</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Wherever there is injustice, there are
also signs of hope – usually in those who are standing up despite the
injustices and struggling, despite the odds, for what is
fair.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>“Education activists and organizers,
including youth, have really gotten busy since Katrina,” Damon Hewitt
points out. “Groups ranging from the Douglass Community Coalition and to
the Downtown Neighborhood Improvement Association's Education Committee
and the FYRE Youth Squad have stepped up their responses to educational
inequity, despite having precious little in the way of resources to do
the work. Their demands for equity and justice have been loud and clearly
articulated. And there are some signs that their efforts are starting to
bear fruit in the creation of after school programs and the like.
Community members who have long advocated for best practices and
community-centered approaches to issues like school discipline may
finally be starting to have a real say in how policies are crafted and
implemented.”</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Hundreds of NAACP members and
supporters marched at the Louisiana Capitol to protest against injustices
in public education. The NAACP is also considering economic boycotts as a
tool to raise awareness of the problems facing public
schools.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Some see hope in the fact that there
is a new Louisiana Superintendent of Education and a new New Orleans
School Superintendent. Will either or both be able to help create some
fairness and equality and competency where little exists? One can hope.
Tracie Washington waits. “I am pleased with the efforts being made by the
new administrators. But really at this time we are still simply repairing
damage wrought over the last two years. To be sure, the new people at the
top did not create this mess. However, there are hundreds of bureaucrats
and the members of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education who sat and watched as our children suffered after Katrina. I
will not forgive them for their acts of cowardice.”</font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>One concrete sign of hope is the New
Orleans Parents Guide to Public Schools – a step by step handbook on how
to select the right school for children. Aesha Rasheed of New Orleans
Network is the editor of the handbook. The 95 page book includes a list
of all public schools open in New Orleans as well as a map that shows
where they are, followed by information pages on each school that shows
the address, a photograph of the building, the grades it serves, its
mission statement, the size of the student population, how to register,
whether there are special requirements for enrollment, the type of
transportation provided, what health and child care services are
available, any special programs and extracurricular activities. While one
could hope that it would not take outsiders to create a description of
the schools in the system, the guide is helpful for parents trying to
navigate the current maze. See
<a href="http://www.nolaparentsguide.org">
http://www.nolaparentsguide.org</a> <br><br>
One of the greatest hopes for change is the students themselves. Students
are speaking out and demanding changes in the fragmented disorganized
public schools. They are telling their stories locally and across the
nation <br><br>
Jade Fleury, a New Orleans public school student, challenged a group of
educators in Washington DC recently. “Bring us together to make a change.
We should be able to collectively put our ideas together to help one
another. BRING US TOGETHER! Why are we developing more and more separate
schools and not more neighborhood schools that the whole diversity of
young people in the neighborhood can attend?” <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The Experiment and the
Fight for the Right to Learn Continue</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Our community understands there is an
experiment going on. Everyone may not totally understand how this
experiment got started, but the results are obvious and
troubling.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>The nation is watching. Charter school
advocates are working furiously to make their half of the experiment a
success. Those committed to the education of rest of the children had
better be working as hard. What is happening in New Orleans is an
experiment about what people hope will happen to communities across the
nation.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Jim Randels, a 20 year veteran teacher
in the N.O. public schools, posed the challenge to those who seek to
remake public education today – “My need as a teacher is to see someone
who will come in and do a charter that works within the attendance
boundaries of an urban neighborhood. Demonstrate to us that innovation
can happen in a school that’s like the majority of public schools in
urban settings. Will you commit to work in an attendance boundary? Will
you commit to working with the same amount of resources that all of us
work with?” <br><br>
The public school system is a reflection of what is occurring in all our
public systems post-Katrina. Public healthcare and public housing are
going the same way. Those with the economic and political power are
re-making the public systems with public funds the way they want them to
operate. Naomi Klein calls this disaster capitalism. Those with the money
see disaster as opportunity to reshape and profit formerly public
systems.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Those at the top have effectively
privatized the best public schools and erected barriers to keep others
out. <br><br>
But, the people excluded are fighting for a voice in this experiment of
choice. <br><br>
These fighters recognize that false reformers are always willing to
experiment on someone else’s children. <br><br>
The truest indication of the fairness of this experiment is that, so far,
not one of the supporters of this experiment have demonstrated a
willingness to send their own children to a RSD school. So, the
experiment, and the fight, continue. <br><br>
Until the day dawns when the educational rights of all the “leftover”
children will be treated as just as important as the educational rights
of our own children, the fight for the right to learn will
continue.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Bill Quigley</b> is a human rights
lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be
reached at <a href="mailto:quigley@loyno.edu">quigley@loyno.edu</a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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