Colonialism, Not Reform New Orleans Schools Since Katrina

[LiberalArkie]

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_04/28_04_karp_sokolower.shtml




By next fall, New Orleans will have only five public schools—those operated by the Orleans Parish School Board. Everything else will be charters. The post-Katrina path to almost 100 percent charter education began with the post-storm shutdown of the city’s struggling public schools and the firing (recently declared illegal) of some 7,500 unionized teachers and other school employees, predominantly African American women. The assault was accelerated by a massive infusion of foundation and entrepreneurial investment in new charter schools, and years of state and federally supported deregulation and privatization.

Today the city has tens of thousands fewer children than before Katrina and significantly fewer African American residents, but the school-age population of 44,000 remains mostly poor and black. Parents and families must navigate a maze of selective charters, each operating as an independent district with little oversight. Special-needs students have particular problems finding appropriate placements. One 2010 study found 4,000 teens, about 10 percent of the city’s student population, not enrolled in school at all. New Orleans has also been a spawning ground for authoritarian “no excuses” pedagogy, inexperienced Teach For America corps members, and “zero tolerance” discipline policies.

Throughout this transformation, Karran Harper Royal has been a passionate voice for parents and an articulate witness, sounding the alarm to the rest of the nation about the on-the-ground realities behind the New Orleans “miracle.” Rethinking Schools editors Stan Karp and Jody Sokolower spoke with Harper Royal in several sessions over the past year.

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http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_04/28_04_karp_sokolower.shtml