Louisiana Educator: New Educational Series on Recovery District

Louisiana Educator: New Educational Series on Recovery District:

New Educational Series on Recovery District

A Perfect Storm: The Takeover of New Orleans Public Schools Part One 17 Days in November from N.O. Education Equity Roundtable on Vimeo.

The New Orleans Equity Roundtable has produced a series of short videos that tell the true story about the takeover of public schools in New Orleans by the state and their conversion to semi-private charter schools. Click here for the first video in the series.

These videos are extremely instructive about the whole issue of school takeover. They effectively expose the myth of "amazing transformation" and "dramatic progress" in educating the at risk children in New Orleans.

Right after the devastation of hurricane Katrina, a whole new group of education entrepreneurs were encouraged by our Louisiana Department of Education to take over any school that was rated as performing below the state average. These charter school developers were given school buildings and almost Cart Blanche to do innovative stuff to close the achievement gap of the mostly poor and at risk student population in New Orleans students. Most of the leaders of this movement adopted a "no excuses" policy for driving up student performance. They diagnosed the problem in New Orleans schools as one of corrupt school management, lazy, uncaring teachers and administrators and low expectations of students. Their remedy was to not rehire the 7,000 educators that were  laid off as a result of the destruction of schools by Katrina. Instead, the new charter schools were encouraged to hire many untrained recent college graduates who would not carry all of the baggage of "low Louisiana Educator: New Educational Series on Recovery District: