A Scholarly Masterpiece: William Frantz Public School | tultican #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER

A Scholarly Masterpiece: William Frantz Public School | tultican

A Scholarly Masterpiece: William Frantz Public School

By Thomas Ultican 4/18/2021

My wonderful friend from New Orleans, Mercedes Schneider, said of this meticulously researched book, “Intense, captivating, and horrible in its reality, William Frantz Public School is a story overdue for the telling – a must read for those seeking to understand New Orleans’ history and the lingering impact of White racial superiority upon the Black community and city infrastructure.” I concur. It is a captivating read.

At its 1938 founding, speakers proclaimed the new William Frantz Public School (WFPS) a “protection for democracy” and a “fortification against encroachment of those terrible ‘isms.’” (WFPS page 3)

However, racism did not just encroach; it dominated. WFPS was built to be a White students only school. Sitting on the border between the all white Florida neighborhood and the all Black Desire neighborhood, WFPS only served the White families. Worse still; the authors report,

“The Orleans Parish School Board built no schools between 1941 and 1951. As a result, existing neighborhood schools throughout the city faced overcrowding. The problem was particularly acute in Desire. Due to the severe overcrowding, many Black children attended school for only a fraction of the time as their White peers living in the Florida neighborhood.” (WFPS 9)

With the Brown versus the Board of education decision in 1954, the Supreme Court declared racial segregation as a school enrollment policy unconstitutional. Louisiana segregationists quickly coalesced to become leaders of their state’s CONTINUE READING: A Scholarly Masterpiece: William Frantz Public School | tultican

An Important New Book About New Orleans and Its Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

An Important New Book About New Orleans and Its Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

An Important New Book About New Orleans and Its Schools

Three scholars have recently published a very informative book about the history of education in New Orleans. The authors tell this story by scrutinizing one very important elementary school in the city, the one that was first to be desegregated with one black student in 1960. The book is titled William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans (Peter Lang). The authors are Connie L. Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator.

This is the school that enrolled 6-year-old Ruby Bridges in November 1960. Her entry to the school each day, a tiny little girl accompanied by federal agents, was met with howling, angry white parents. Her admission to an all-white school in New Orleans was a landmark in the fight to implement the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. It was immortalized by Norman Rockwell in a famous painting called The Problem We All Live With.

The authors set the stage for their history by pointing out that the Reconstruction-era constitution of Louisiana forbade racially segregated schools. In the early 1870s, about one-third of the public schools in New Orleans were racially integrated. Some schools had racially CONTINUE READING: An Important New Book About New Orleans and Its Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

NOLA Public Schools: Two charter networks violated state law on background checks | The Lens

NOLA Public Schools: Two charter networks violated state law on background checks | The Lens

NOLA Public Schools: Two charter networks violated state law on background checks

James M. Singleton Charter School failed to conduct criminal background checks for some of its employees and employed someone ineligible to work at the school because of a criminal conviction, according to a Wednesday letter to the school from the NOLA Public Schools district warning that the school’s practices on background checks violated state law. The district letter also said that the Louisiana State Police could not confirm the validity of a number of background checks in the school’s files.

The district issued a separate letter on March 10 citing KIPP New Orleans Schools for employing someone ineligible to work in a school because of a past criminal conviction. 

Schools are legally required to complete employee background checks to ensure they do not hire someone who’s been convicted of or pleaded no contest to one or more of a list of crimes outlined in state law. Many of the violations are serious or involve children, such as murder, assault, kidnapping, child desertion and carnal knowledge of a juvenile. Others involve prostitution or manufacture or distribution of drugs.

On Tuesday, a spokesman with the New Orleans Police Department told The Lens that the incidents are related but did not elaborate further.

“We’ve been advised that the principal of James Singleton School was instructed by school CONTINUE READING: NOLA Public Schools: Two charter networks violated state law on background checks | The Lens

New Orleans: The Other Side of the Story | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: The Other Side of the Story | Diane Ravitch's blog

New Orleans: The Other Side of the Story

I recently interviewed Raynard Sanders, a veteran educator in New Orleans, about his new book The Coup D’etat of the New Orleans Public Schools: Money, Power, and the Illegal of a Public School System.

You can watch it here.

He spoke at length about the blatant racism involved in the takeover and privatization of the city’s public schools. The state leaders (white) had been eager to find a reason to seize control of the district, which had a majority black school board. Ray says that the state commissioner cooked up a tale about missing millions of federal dollars. This same commissioner obtained an audit that showed there were no missing millions, but he continued to keep the story alive to undermine confidence in the elected school board. When the hurricane devastated the city, it was the perfect excuse for the white elite in the city and the state to grab control of the schools, their budget and their personnel. The hurricane became a rationale for firing the mostly African American staff, which was the backbone of the city’s black middle class, and replacing them with young white Teach for America recruits. It is a sobering interview.

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New Orleans: The Other Side of the Story | Diane Ravitch's blog

My Complete, Unedited Review of Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

My Complete, Unedited Review of Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

My Complete, Unedited Review of Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City

In January 2020, Commonweal Magazine asked me to review Doug Harris’ book about New Orleans charter schools, Charter School City.

I completed my review in February 2020, but with the pandemic, my review was not published until November 2020.

As so often happens in publication, the review I submitted was pared down considerably, which editors reserve the right to do though the result might make the review seem shallow or incomplete. In this case (and to my dismay), the edits in one section involved a splicing that altered the meaning of my words. (For the backstory on that error, see this email exchange.)

According to the terms of my contract with Commonweal, I needed to wait 90 days before publicizing my originally-submitted, unedited review. And so, since those 90 days have passed, I offer below my complete review of Harris’ book.

Book Review: Douglas N. Harris, Charter School City: What the End of Traditional Public Schools in New Orleans Means for American Education, University of Chicago Press, April 2020.

***

My family is from New Orleans. My father and his siblings grew up in a white neighborhood, intentionally zoned, and attended all-white schools in the 1920s and 30s, also intentionally zoned. In the 1950s, my family relocated to neighboring St. Bernard Parish, as did many former white residents of New Orleans. My mother also grew up in New Orleans and relocated to St. Bernard, where she attended an all-white high school in the early to mid-1960s. Around the time my mother was a freshman in high school (1960), just as Ruby Bridges became the first black child to attend New Orleans’ all-white William Franz Elementary school,St. Bernard opened a school on the St. Bernard-Orleans Parish line expressly to allow white residents of New Orleans to use school vouchers to escape federally-mandated integration of New Orleans public schools. Though the voucher school was forced to close a year later, the virulent anti-black CONTINUE READING: My Complete, Unedited Review of Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Police investigating alleged embezzlement at Warren Easton Charter High School | The Lens

Police investigating alleged embezzlement at Warren Easton Charter High School | The Lens

Police investigating alleged embezzlement at Warren Easton Charter High School

Warren Easton Charter High School’s annual financial audit has revealed a $70,000 discrepancy in the school’s student activity funds, and the New Orleans Police Department is investigating the matter as a theft by a former employee.

The incident, reported to police in December, occurred between March 2019 and July 2020, according to the school’s annual financial audit released Monday. The audit does not reveal the name of the employee accused of stealing the money but says that the person is no longer employed by the school.

“The Business Manager of the School fraudulently absconded with $70,842 of Student Activity Funds,” the audit states.

Asked whether any arrests had been made, an NOPD spokesman wrote, “We have not been made aware of any arrests at this time in this investigation.” CONTINUE READING: Police investigating alleged embezzlement at Warren Easton Charter High School | The Lens

NOLA Public Schools warns Rooted School over grading scale

Rooted School, a charter high school located at Touro Synagogue on St. Charles Avenue, found itself in hot water with the NOLA Public Schools district earlier this month over a grading scale it has used for the last four years and that its founder and CEO says the district was well aware of.

But earlier this month, a top district official issued a warning letter to the school, saying the way it grades is a violation of NOLA Public Schools policy. 

Since opening in 2017, Rooted founder and CEO Jonathan Johnson said the school has used an “ABCF” grading scale — notably absent is the just-passing D. At Rooted, anything that would have fallen into the district’s D on the grading scale is an F. 

“Essentially our philosophy was — and still is — that D does not constitute passing,” Johnson said in an interview on Friday, explaining that grades are a strong indicator of how students perform in college. 

Johnson said the district has known about the grading scale for several years CONTINUE READING: NOLA Public Schools warns Rooted School over grading scale

Educators: Beware “The City Fund” and Its Many Tentacles of Privatization | Diane Ravitch's blog

Educators: Beware “The City Fund” and Its Many Tentacles of Privatization | Diane Ravitch's blog

Educators: Beware “The City Fund” and Its Many Tentacles of Privatization

This article was co-authored by a group of educators who oppose privatization. They have identified the primary driver of privatization in their different communities: The City Fund, subsidized primarily by corporate “reformers” Reed Hastings and John Arnold. The City Fund is led by experienced privatizers who have tried their hand in places like Tennessee and New Orleans, where the PR was great but the results were not. It opened its operations with $200 million in hand from its funders. Lots of money, no members, and a charge to go out into the nation and find cities where they could disrupt the local school board elections by underwriting advocates of privatization. They are undermining public schools and democracy at the same time. They should hang their heads in shame. They won’t.

The authors of the following are: Dr. Tracee Miller was an elected member of the St. Louis Board of Education. Dr. Keith Benson is president of the Camden Education Association. Christina Smith is Secretary of Indianapolis Public Schools Community Coalition. Dawn Chanet Collins, East Baton Rouge Parish School System Board Member and Candidate for Metro-Council 6. Bobby Blount is a San Antonio Northside ISD Trustee. Don Macleay is a member of Oakland Public Schools Action 2020.

They wrote the following article:

Education Privatization: Eerie Similarities in Stories from 15 Major US Cities CONTINUE READING: Educators: Beware “The City Fund” and Its Many Tentacles of Privatization | Diane Ravitch's blog

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Raynard Sanders - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Raynard Sanders - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Raynard Sanders

Start: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 • 7:00 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

End: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 • 8:30 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guest will be author and educator, Raynard Sanders. Join Diane and Raynard in conversation about Raynard's latest book, The Coup D’état of the New Orleans Public Schools: Money, Power, and the Illegal Takeover of a Public School System.

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Raynard Sanders - Network For Public Education

William Franz Public School: A Must-Read for Those Who Think They Know New Orleans | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

William Franz Public School: A Must-Read for Those Who Think They Know New Orleans | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

William Franz Public School: A Must-Read for Those Who Think They Know New Orleans

Anyone purporting to understand the challenges of K12 education in New Orleans absent knowledge of the disgraceful, entrenched history of Black oppression and White superiority in the city (and enabled by the layering of racist attitudes at the state level in multiple states) is only interfering with any genuine effort to address the problem.

It is convenient for would-be education reformers to begin their discussions with New Orleans public school test scores prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or to issues with the Orleans Parish School Board prior to the storm, but such discussions only reveal the ignorance (willful or not) of the speaker.

Consider this a call to education, namely, to self-educate about New Orleans and the generations of intentional disenfranchisement of the Black community by entitled Whites.

To that end, I know of no book better to begin such self-education than William Franz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans. In their primarily-archival investigation centered on a single school, William Franz Public School, authors Connie Shaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator pack an incredible amount of history in this 300-page, eye-opening, historical treasure.

Many might remember Willam Franz Public School as the once-all-White elementary school in the national spotlight when first-grader Ruby Bridges became the first Black student to enroll in November 1960. However, Shaffer et al. do not stop with November 1960. Indeed, they do not start with November 1960, and they do not stop with a narrow history of the CONTINUE READING: William Franz Public School: A Must-Read for Those Who Think They Know New Orleans | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

What Happened to the School in New Orleans That Was First to Desegregate? | Diane Ravitch's blog

What Happened to the School in New Orleans That Was First to Desegregate? | Diane Ravitch's blog

What Happened to the School in New Orleans That Was First to Desegregate?

You may recall the iconic painting of little Ruby Bridges, a first-grader, who was the first African American student to enroll in a previously all-white segregated school in New Orleans. If you don’t, be sure to read this article, which tells what happened to the William Franz Public School.

Three scholars–Connie L. Schaffer, Martha Graham Viator, and Meg White–tell the story. The three are also the co-authors of a book titled: William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resilience, and Recovery in New Orleans, which I am reading now and expect to review.

They write:

If that building’s walls could talk, they certainly would tell the well-known story of its desegregation. But those same walls could tell another story, too. That story is about continued racism as well as efforts to dismantle and privatize public education in America over the past six decades.

When little Ruby Bridges enrolled in November 1960, she was escorted by four federal marshalls. Crowds of angry CONTINUE READING: What Happened to the School in New Orleans That Was First to Desegregate? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Mercedes Schneider Reviews Douglas Harris’s Book About New Orleans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Mercedes Schneider Reviews Douglas Harris’s Book About New Orleans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Mercedes Schneider Reviews Douglas Harris’s Book About New Orleans

Mercedes Schneider reviewed Douglas Harris’s book Charter City in Commonweal. As a teacher in Louisiana and a close observer of the politics of education, Schneider is well positioned to assess the claims on behalf of the all-charter NewOrleans district. Harris is a respected economist who heads the Education Research Alliance at Tulane University, which received a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to study school choice.

Schneider writes about the determination of whites in Louisiana to block integration of the public schools after the Brown decision. When the courts struck down vouchers, “anti-Black sentiment never waned, and decades of white flight from New Orleans followed. Meanwhile, the state diligently set about eliminating economic advancement opportunities for the remaining Black population, limiting employment and housing CONTINUE READING: Mercedes Schneider Reviews Douglas Harris’s Book About New Orleans | Diane Ravitch's blog

Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City ((Shaking My Head)) | deutsch29

Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City ((Shaking My Head)) | deutsch29

Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City ((Shaking My Head))

Education Research Alliance of New Orleans (ERA) founder Doug Harris has published a book about the primarily-post-Katrina charterization of New Orleans public schools, Charter School City (University of Chicago Press, July 2020).

Harris’ book is endorsed by Former US ed sec Arne Duncan:

“The schools in New Orleans have gotten better faster than perhaps any other district in the country. To see this progress, in the wake of the trauma and devastation from Hurricane Katrina, is just awe-inspiring. In this ground-breaking book, Harris provides a full and careful picture of how the community did it and what others can learn from it. New Orleans shows us what’s possible, and it gives all of us reason for hope.”
— Arne Duncan, managing partner, Emerson Collective and former US Secretary of Education

This is the same Arne Duncan who callously tossed off in January 2010, “I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.” (Days later, Duncan apologized for the comment.)

I wonder how much of Harris’ book Duncan had actually read.

In January 2020, I read it all. Cover to cover.

I did so at the request of Commonweal Magazine, a New York-based publication seeking a review of Harris’ book. I submitted my review in February 2020, just weeks before the pandemic shut down the country and delayed many plans, including publication of my review.

I have confirmed that Commonweal Magazine still plans to publish my review of CONTINUE READING: Doug Harris’ Book, Charter School City ((Shaking My Head)) | deutsch29