The Truth About New Orleans Schools
A repost from Louisiana Weekly written by Kari Dequine Harden who should be commended for uncovering and reporting the facts about the privatization and failure of the New Orleans Recovery School District. Facts that the mainstream media has at their disposal but refuses to print.
Contributing Writer
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional comments and reporting that does not appear in the print edition.
As the Recovery School District (RSD) shuts the doors on its remaining handful of traditional public schools, the start of the 2014 school year will usher in the nation’s first completely privatized public school district.
Every school the RSD took over following Hurricane Katrina and the passage of Act 35 — with the stated intent of “turning around,” was either closed or will be turned over—into the hands of private charter operators, creating the first all-charter district in the history of the United States.
For nearly nine years it has been on the backs of New Orleans’ children and communities that the “reformers” have conducted this grand experiment, the majority of whom have come from other parts of the country.
Now, as the “reform” train, (fueled by billionaire philanthropists and Wall Street investors), plows across the land, the nation looks to the New Orleans test site. Anyone and everyone concerned about the education of American children and the future of the country must ask: Did it work?
The grandiose public relations campaign put forth by the Louisiana Department of Education and the RSD suggests a resounding “Yes!” But lawsuits alleging the wrongful termination of teachers and the discrimination against children with special needs, civil rights complaints alleging prison-like conditions and racial discrimination, and disenfranchised communities full of devastated and angry alumni who have watched neighborhood schools ripped away – schools that were at the core of their identity for generations – all suggest otherwise.
And while the local mainstream media seems all too happy to gobble up and regurgitate the state’s academic achievement data as truth, the blogosphere is abounding with carefully documented details of the state’s systemic and persistent manipulation – and illegal withholding – of public data.
Even by the state’s own haphazard standards, the now all-charter RSD New Orleans continues to remain at the Geaux Teacher!: The Truth About New Orleans Schools:
New Orleans nearing a ‘privatized’ public school system
2nd June 2014 · 0 CommentsBy Kari Dequine HardenContributing Writer
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional comments and reporting that does not appear in the print edition.
As the Recovery School District (RSD) shuts the doors on its remaining handful of traditional public schools, the start of the 2014 school year will usher in the nation’s first completely privatized public school district.
Every school the RSD took over following Hurricane Katrina and the passage of Act 35 — with the stated intent of “turning around,” was either closed or will be turned over—into the hands of private charter operators, creating the first all-charter district in the history of the United States.
For nearly nine years it has been on the backs of New Orleans’ children and communities that the “reformers” have conducted this grand experiment, the majority of whom have come from other parts of the country.
Now, as the “reform” train, (fueled by billionaire philanthropists and Wall Street investors), plows across the land, the nation looks to the New Orleans test site. Anyone and everyone concerned about the education of American children and the future of the country must ask: Did it work?
The grandiose public relations campaign put forth by the Louisiana Department of Education and the RSD suggests a resounding “Yes!” But lawsuits alleging the wrongful termination of teachers and the discrimination against children with special needs, civil rights complaints alleging prison-like conditions and racial discrimination, and disenfranchised communities full of devastated and angry alumni who have watched neighborhood schools ripped away – schools that were at the core of their identity for generations – all suggest otherwise.
And while the local mainstream media seems all too happy to gobble up and regurgitate the state’s academic achievement data as truth, the blogosphere is abounding with carefully documented details of the state’s systemic and persistent manipulation – and illegal withholding – of public data.
Even by the state’s own haphazard standards, the now all-charter RSD New Orleans continues to remain at the Geaux Teacher!: The Truth About New Orleans Schools: