| August
6, 2007
A
Special Report on Katrina and Education
Experimenting on Someone Else's
Children
Fighting
for the Right to Learn in New Orleans
By BILL
QUIGLEY
“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.”
W.E.B.
DuBois, “The Freedom to Learn.” (1949)
"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."
Che
Guevara
""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."
Louisiana
Board of Elementary and Secondary School Member (2007)
There
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.
This
is the experiment.
The
First Half
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.
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.
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.
The
Other Half
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Hardly
any white children attend this half of the school experiment.
These
are the public schools available to the rest of the public school
students.
Who
Started This Experiment
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.
This
experiment has been controversial from the beginning.
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 NO
EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: How the New Orleans Takeover Experiment Devalues
Experienced Teachers,” June 2007, (hereafter New Orleans
Teachers Report).
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, STATE
OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN NEW ORLEANS, June 2007, (hereafter the
Cowen Report).
How
Government Created This Experiment
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Then
all four thousand public school teachers in New Orleans, members
of the largest union in Louisiana, were fired – along with
support staff.
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.
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.
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.”
Many
foundations are contributing large sums of money to the experiment.
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.
How
the Experiment Actually Operates
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.
Of
the public schools operating at the end of the 2006-2007 academic
year, educating 57 percent of public school students, were charters.
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.
This
experiment has resulted in a clearly defined two-tier public school
system.
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.
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”).
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.
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.
While
some sympathize with the children in the bottom half, little has
been done to assist those in the RSD schools.
How
the Top Half Operates
Start
with the money. Charter schools have more of it than the RSD schools.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A
look at Algiers charter school association (ACSA) website illustrates
how schools in the top half operate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wouldn’t
every returning student like to enroll in one of these schools?
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.
How
the Rest of the School District Operates
By
law, the RSD is required to accept any student who shows up and
is prohibited from having any selective admissions policy.
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.
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."
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Is
it any surprise that the disorganized and under-staffed RSD was
having problems finding teachers for their schools?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
Controlling
students sometimes appeared to take priority over educating students.
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.”
“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.”
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.
One
current public school teacher, name withheld for reasons that will
be obvious, was not hopeful.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“This
Balkanized school system is not closing a gap. It’s opening
a chasm.”
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.”
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.
Possible
Positive Results of this Experiment
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Politically,
the real winners in this experiment are almost guaranteed to be
those who back the idea of charter schools.
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 “Evaluation
of the Public Charter Schools Program,” 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.”
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.
If
charter schools cannot prove themselves superior with this New Orleans
deck stacked in their favor, they should quit and go home.
Apart
from charter school backers are there others who are likely to see
positive outcomes?
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.
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."
Negative
Possibilities of This Experiment
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.
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.
“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!”
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
“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.”
“There
must be, backing up every large scale charter system, the schools
for the children…who are “un-chosen” by charter
schools.”
“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.”
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?
The
Future of the Experiment
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.
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?
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.
Will
race and economic segregation increase or decrease as a result of
this experiment?
Tracie
Washington, speaking both as a civil rights attorney and parent,
thinks any future success for all children will only come through
serious struggle.
“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.
“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.”
“Our
opportunity requires that those in power release the resources
for our community to fulfill its vision for public schools.”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
Signs
of Hope
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.
“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.”
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.
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.”
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
http://www.nolaparentsguide.org
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
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?”
The
Experiment and the Fight for the Right to Learn Continue
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.
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.
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?”
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.
Those
at the top have effectively privatized the best public schools and
erected barriers to keep others out.
But,
the people excluded are fighting for a voice in this experiment
of choice.
These
fighters recognize that false reformers are always willing to experiment
on someone else’s children.
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.
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.
Bill
Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola
University New Orleans. He can be reached at quigley@loyno.edu
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