Teachers' union head spars with education reformer over New Orleans
Did New Orleans adequately address problems facing special needs students in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Influential figures on both sides of the debate met on the same stage Wednesday.
The conservative American Enterprise Institute hosted an eventlooking back at a decade of education reforms in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. In order to get a variety of viewpoints, pro- and anti-charter school advocates were invited to participate. During the event's final panel, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Paul Pastorek, former Superintendent of Education in Louisiana, exchanged words.
Weingarten was speaking about how the education reform model used in New Orleans had not worked well in Detroit. Rather than replicate New Orleans, she described why successful reforms had worked.
"It's this engagement, collaboration, and intervention. ... I'm actually looking at what are the strategies that work regardless of what the governance structure is."
When Pastorek had a chance to speak, he said, "It's great to have all the things that Randi talks about, you know collaboration, engagement, and such, but if it doesn't lead to results, then some serious action needs to be taken because kids can't wait for adults to get their act together."
Moments later, Weingarten got the opportunity to respond. "I would actually just take issue with something that Paul said," Weingarten said. "Of course kids only have one shot at life, and if there's anybody who's involved in public education who don't think that it's urgent to help all kids they should get out. So the issue really becomes, what is the strategy that helps? … We had to actually hammer people over the head about issues of expulsions and special needs and these data points come in after or in light of that, and that we basically have taken away people's wherewithal to actually have some kind of independent voice I think we should be looking at other models as well."
"Randi, I don't think you have your facts right," Pastorek responded. "The facts are different. We didn't hammer people down, and we didn't have to put our foot down on expulsions. That's the way we built the system in the first place to make sure that it would work well. Like any system puts rules in place to address what people complain about."
"Are you saying that I'm wrong about the issue about expulsions or the issue about special needs children?" Weingarten interjected.
"I'm saying you're wrong about saying that we had to hammer people down," Pastorek said. "We monitored both special needs and we monitored expulsions. The special needs issues in New Orleans were actually very few. … You're exaggerating the problem. It is serious, it must be focused on, there must be a system to monitor it and assure that it's being done. And it is working there. So I would say you're wrong about that."
"Am I wrong about the 2013 suit by Southern Poverty Law Center about the failure to provide adequate education for students with special needs?" Weingarten said.
"People are entitled to file lawsuits any and every day, and they do," Teachers' union head spars with education reformer over New Orleans | Washington Examiner:
