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packman

(16,296 posts)
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:12 PM Jun 2014

The Death of the Public School system in New Orleans

“They don’t answer to anyone,” said Sean Johnson, the dean of students at Banneker, whose father attended the school while growing up in the Black Pearl neighborhood. “The charters have money and want to make more money. They have their own boards, make their own rules, accept who they want and put out who they want to put out.”

Advocates say the all-charter model empowers parents.

“We’ve reinvented how schools run,” said Neerav Kingsland of New Schools for New Orleans


An entire system of public education is now in the hands of the charter school cartels in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina provided the shove needed for the charter schools to step in - now, each charter school is setting its own standards, own curriculum, hiring/firing policies, even own dress codes as the NO schools move away from a centralized bureacracy. And it's having an impact.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-new-orleans-traditional-public-schools-close-for-good/2014/05/28/ae4f5724-e5de-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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seabeyond

(110,159 posts)
1. this is interesting. my son is going to uno, has a lot of fellow students out of this educational
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:19 PM
Jun 2014

system. he has always been pretty perceptive on the school issue and well aware that the opportunity for education is there, if a student is willing to put the work in. but, he did say, new orleans is the one place he can say students are not getting their education. he was aghast the lack of knowledge and ability to think with louisianna students but new orleans students particular. he say private is the only way to go in new orleans and what so many of the parents are doing for their kids anymore. it is totally unique. and unique is not always a good thing.

Cyrano

(15,023 posts)
2. The privatization of "public schools"
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:20 PM
Jun 2014

Ahh, the magic of the marketplace. For-profit schools put $$ first and education second? Third? Is it even on the list?

It's like the Republicans intentionally set out to fuck up this country and they're succeeding past their wildest dreams.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
4. "White students disproportionately attend the best charter schools, while...
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:24 PM
Jun 2014

.... while the worst are almost exclusively populated by African American students."

Remember these schools do not have to keep students. Where will they send them if they don't measure up? In that district there are no public schools left....so where will the students go?

This is plain and simple resegregation by charter.

After Katrina, the Orleans Parish School Board fired more than 7,000 employees — nearly all of them African American — while the charter schools hired scores of young teachers, many of them white recruits from Teach for America. The fired teachers sued for wrongful termination and won a judgment that could total more than $1?billion.

White students disproportionately attend the best charter schools, while the worst are almost exclusively populated by African American students. Activists in New Orleans joined with others in Detroit and Newark last month to file a federal civil rights complaint, alleging that the city’s best-performing schools have admissions policies that exclude African American children. Those schools are overseen by the separate Orleans Parish School Board, and they don’t participate in OneApp, the city’s centralized school enrollment lottery.

John White, the state’s superintendent of education, agreed that access to the best schools is not equal in New Orleans, but he said the state is prevented by law from interfering with the Orleans Parish School Board’s operations.

“The claim that there’s an imbalance is right on the money,” White said. “The idea that it’s associated with privilege and high outcomes is right on the money.”


They know it's unfair, the superintendent says so out loud. But they don't care.
 

msanthrope

(37,549 posts)
9. It's only going to fixed via civil rights lawsuits and consent decrees. There's a lawsuit regarding
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 02:02 PM
Jun 2014

the rights of disabled students, one for Vietnamese and Latino students, and now, one for African-American kids. It all comes down to the civil rights of children vs the rights of the charters (corporate/quasi-governmental.)

I support the kids.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
10. Our paper printed, this week, senior graduation photos from county schools.
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 02:18 PM
Jun 2014

The pics one finds in the year books, you know the kind.

Our town's Public High School...98% black
A rural Public High School...80% black
The county private school...99% white, ONE senior named Patel, parents own 2of the motels here ( Days Inn and another one I can't remember)
The county private school is in a new growing town just outside city limits. It is considered THE place to buy a home, very pricey houses.

Said school systems can be found everywhere in the state.
4 long time black school teachers are suing the City/school Board for discrimination.

randys1

(16,286 posts)
5. This is a very important step, make sure only certain people get educations
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:29 PM
Jun 2014

And make sure anyone who gets one will ultimately pay outrageously for it...

VA main issue is not enough primary care physicians, for example, why?

cost to become dr is prohibitive so you become a specialist..

Koch's are the worst enemy this country has faced since Hilter and the Japanese invasion, this is for sure

longship

(40,416 posts)
6. And apparently a whole lot of Creationism in biology class.
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 12:51 PM
Jun 2014

Thanks to the monumentally idiotic LA state legislature who passed one of those monumentally idiotic "education freedom" laws. Of course, the monumentally idiotic Jindal signed it into law.

It has not yet been challenged, apparently.

Buh-bye US exceptionalism.

 

Doctor_J

(36,392 posts)
7. The government/corporation cabal won't stop until everything is as bad
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 01:48 PM
Jun 2014

as our health care - schools, roads, water, environment, prisons, parks, eldercare... this is fascism.

madfloridian

(88,117 posts)
11. That was a mean cruel thing he said.
Sun Jun 1, 2014, 02:20 PM
Jun 2014

To have been someone who lived through Katrina and have the guy in charge of education say that....unconscionable.

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