A Brief Tutorial on Reading “Miracle” Graphs
On August 8, 2013, Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS) founder and director Caroline Roemer Shirley sent out an email announcement regarding the supposed superiority of the state-run RSD charter schools over non-charters. She even states that her child will attend a charter this year (no specifics provided). Roemer Shirley is the sister of Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) President Chas Roemer, who is helping his sister by promoting charters. (Seems like an ethical issue, but not in Louisiana, where these conflicts of interest are brushed aside.
The truth about the failure of RSD charters according to the state’s own criteria for such “failure” is no selling point at all. That necessitates some creative graphic constructions to “prove” that “the reforms are working.” Thus, as part of Roemer Shirley’s letter (available here: Orleans Goes Back to School), she includes a graphic designed to manipulate and unsuspecting public into buying the lie that RSD charters are indeed miraculous. Here is the graphic (click on it to make it larger):
The yellow bar represents the elementary and middle schools that would have been in RSD had RSD taken control of these schools prior to Hurricane Katrina (the storm hit August 29, 2005); these are called “proxy” schools. The blue bar represents the RSD-
