Ten Years Post-Katrina, the New Orleans Community Forms BENOLA
On February 26, 2016, Jennifer Berkshire released this 20-minute audio interview with long-time school choice advocate, Howard Fuller. I have written about Fuller in my ed reform who’s-who, A Chronicle of Echoes, for his involvement in founding the corporate reform vehicle, the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO).
Howard Fuller
One of the prevailing questions about Fuller is the degree to which he is simply carrying out the wishes of funders such as the Walton Foundation as opposed to trying to use those funds to truly empower parents and communities. (I even hesitate to use the word, “empower,” because it has long been co-opted by corporate reformers and pasted over their obvious top-down efforts to kill community schools in favor of under-regulated “choice” strategically placed just out of true control of those whom “choice” supposedly empowers.)
That noted, after hearing Fuller’s interview with Berkshire regarding his assistance in helping native New Orleaneans form an actual grassroots organization, BENOLA– and after both an extensive formal interview with BENOLA founding member, Ashana Bigard, as well as another discussion with her over the phone in preparation for this post– it seems that Fuller is earnestly trying to help establish what has been grossly absent in the post-Katrina New Orleans state takeover: Involvement and investment by the New Orleans community itself.
Ashana Bigard
Given Fuller’s long-time Walton involvements, what makes Fuller’s efforts to actually empower New Orleans community members particularly interesting is this October 2015 report announcing that the Walton Foundation 2016-20 strategic plan involves trying to drum up community support for its charter school reforms– and one city of particular focus is New Orleans. The Waltons have put the reforms in place and want to purchase a campaign to bring communities into line with supporting the Walton charter efforts. However, what Fuller appears to be trying to do is bring the Waltons (and other corporate reform investors) around to seeing that they should fund community groups and give those groups the freedom to make their own decisions– not to just toe the Walton-decided line.
On February 27, 2016, I transcribed Berkshire’s interview with Fuller (that transcription can be found here: Berkshire-Fuller interview). In the remainder of this Ten Years Post-Katrina, the New Orleans Community Forms BENOLA | deutsch29: