From New Orleans: Washing Machine-Style Education Reform
As a New Orleans parent and an active member of my community, I think of myself as an expert on the experiment in education reform that tranformed my city into the nation's first all-charter school district. So when I attended a recent community-centered conference on “The New Orleans Model of Urban School Reform: A Guide or a Warning for Cities Across the Nation?” I wasn’t sure there’d be much for me to learn.
In fact, given the focus on academic urban education research, I feared the event would speak only to people who have Ph.D.s or are working on getting one, neither of which describes me.
But the research on what has happened to New Orleans over the last ten years shocked me. The story of what happened here is important not just to those of us who live here, but to people who live in any of the cities where New Orleans-style education reform is headed next, possibly including yours.
Parent activist Anthony Parker described what he called “washing machine” approach to education reform: “Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.” He was talking about what happens to children. Children wait at bus stops as early as 4:30 in the morning and don't get home until 7:30 or 8:00 at night. Then it’s time to do homework, go to sleep, get back up and repeat the cycle all over again. Children are badly sleep deprived. Despite the long school days, children often get no time for social development because of the strict and rigorous atmosphere of the charter schools here. Nor are they learning from a curriculum that feels relevant, respectful, and accessible to a child of color growing up in this community. This is a painful and unnecessary waste of most of these children's time.
Parker, whose grandparents taught in the New Orleans Public Schools for a combined sixty years, described how hard it was to explain to his son why he can’t attend their neighborhood school after his charter school was closed. For Parker’s own son, who is just seven years old, “washing machine” reform means he’ll be attending his fourth school this fall. “Wash, rinse, repeat.”
The lives of adults have been disrupted, too. Charmaine Neville talked about her relationship to the schools in the New Orleans neighborhood of Bywater. Before the storm, she was deeply involved in schools across the city, volunteering, tutoring, and giving lessons of all kinds. She described her heartbreak when she tried to help children with special needs who attend the
- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/08/188260/new-orleans-washing-machine-style-education-reform#sthash.yTCQJM1C.dpuf