On the “Success” of a 100% Charter Recovery School District
On May 29, 2014, Lindsey Layton of the Washington Post wrote this article on the conversion of the state-run New Orleans Recovery School District’s (RSD) conversion to charters.
I would like to clarify a few of Layton’s glossy statements about RSD.
Let us begin with this one:
The creation of the country’s first all-charter school system has improved education for many children in New Orleans.
Layton offers no substantial basis for her opinion of “improvement” other than that the schools were “seized” by the state following Katrina.
Certainly school performance scores do not support Layton’s idea of “improvement.” Even with the inflation of the 2013 school performance scores, RSD has no A schools and very few B schools. In fact, almost the entire RSD– which was already approx 90 percent charters– qualifies as a district of “failing” schools according to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s definition of “failing schools” as C, D, F schools and whose students are eligible for vouchers.
The district grade for RSD “rose” to a C due to a deliberate score inflation documented here and here.
The purpose of vouchers is to enable students to escape “failing” schools. Ironic how the predominately-charter RSD has the greatest concentration of such “failing” schools in the entire state of Louisiana.
On to another Layton whopper:
In the tumult after the hurricane, the state seized control of 102 of the city’s 117 schools — the worst performers — and created the appointed Recovery School District to oversee them, while letting the Orleans Parish School Board run the On the “Success” of a 100% Charter Recovery School District | deutsch29: