NEW ORLEANS EDUCATION REFORM: A GUIDE FOR CITIES OR A WARNING FOR COMMUNITIES?
Kristen Buras, Ph.D., assistant professor at Georgia State University, has written extensively on post-Hurricane Katrina education reforms. Her work has appeared in numerous articles and publications. She recently published with a local research group a warning notice to communities across the country considering using the New Orleans education reform model for turning around their school systems. In this interview Dr. Kristen talks about fundamental problems with the education reforms in New Orleans and why communities should beware.
RS: Over the years, you’ve written extensively about education reform. Could you tell us about your articles and books?
KB: Much of my work has focused on education policy in New Orleans, the destructive effects it has had on Black working-class communities and how communities “speak out” to challenge what is happening in the city’s public schools. I coauthored a book with veteran teachers and students entitled Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans. It includes firsthand accounts on how privately managed charter schools and the mass firing of veteran teachers have negatively affected communities. My forthcoming book is called Charter Schools, Race, and Urban
Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance. As the title suggests, it charts the assault on Black public schools and neighborhoods by mostly White policymakers and entrepreneurs and bottom-up resistance to the education market that has been imposed on the community.
RS: Could you tell us what compelled you to join with colleagues to write a “Warning for Communities” about education reform in New Orleans?
KB: In early 2012, the city’s leading charter school incubator, New Schools for New Orleans, issued A Guide for Cities. Sen. Mary Landrieu organized a forum in Washington, DC, that highlighted the Guide to national policymakers. Their message was that cities across the nation should follow the New Orleans model of school reform because it has been an amazing success. Based on experience and research, we knew a different story needed to be told. When I say “we,” I mean Urban South Grassroots Research Collective (USGRC). As director of USGRC, I work closely with various longstanding educational and cultural organizations in New Orleans as well as other researchers engaged in documenting and challenging the inequities of charter schools. We joined together and published a response, New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? (What was New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? | The New Orleans Tribune:
