Test scores or jobs? I’ll have both
This week, the Black Alliance of Educational Options (BAEO) convenes its Annual Symposium in New Orleans, a battleground city for school reform validation (some may say disapproval). As a Symposium participant, I’m leading a town hall dialogue described as “[a] discussion of the progress that has been made to reform public education in New Orleans post-Katrina and a dialogue about how difficult issues such as race, class, community participation, and power will impact education reform efforts going forward.”
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But how should we measure progress? As New Orleans approaches the ninth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, assayers will inquire: Has education improved since the storm? This simplistic question elicits rhetorically loaded responses in which test scores and demographic shifts are thrown around like Mardi Gras beads. In my opinion, there’s no more important framework of progress than: Are poor black and brown residents of New Orleans any more equipped to leave and return to New Orleans after a natural disaster? Consequently, a conversation on educational progress must point to evidence of true community empowerment among poor residents of color.
Let’s be clear; poor black folk in New Orleans need more than increased performances on standardized tests. Life expectancy in New Orleans’ poorest zip code is 25.5-years lower than the zip code with the least amount of poverty. Forty-two percent of Orleans Parish children live in poverty. Whites on average earn twice as much as blacks. Less than 50 percent of black men are in the
