This new educational caste system being created in New Orleans is intended to serve as the urban schooling model for America. It is funded and controlled by the Louisiana State Department of Education, the U. S. Department of Education, and, of course, by Bill and Melinda. This past week at a Rotary luncheon in Baton Rouge, Lousisiana Superintendent of Education, Paul Pastorek, had this to say: “pay attention to New Orleans. . . . We are going to show how it can be done and we are going to translate that to the rest of the state.”
Loyola law professor, Bill Quigley, explains how it is working so far:
. . . . How the Experiment Actually OperatesWith a few exceptions, the state of Louisiana essentially now controls the public school system in New Orleans. There is little local control. The state has subcontracted much of the work of education to willing charter schools.
Of the public schools operating at the end of the 2006-2007 academic year, charter schools were educating 57 percent of public school students.
This makes New Orleans the urban district with by far the highest proportion of publicly funded charter schools in the nation. Dayton, Ohio has the second-highest concentration of charter schools, involving 30 percent of its 17,000 students.
This experiment has resulted in a clearly defined two-tier public school system.
The top tier is made up of the best public and charter public schools, which most children cannot get into, and a number of new and promising charter public schools that are available for the industrious and determined parents of children who do not have academic or emotional disabilities.
The second tier is for the rest of the children. Their education is assigned to the RSD (some are already calling it "The Rest of the School District").
The top half of the schools are the point of this experiment in public charter schools. National charter school advocacy groups are pointing to New Orleans as the experiment that will demonstrate that publicly funded charter schools are superior to public schools.
However, the top half could not work without the bottom half. If the schools in the top half had to accept the students assigned to the second-tier schools, the results of the experiment would obviously turn out quite differently. As the experiment is structured, students in the bottom-half schools will be very useful to compare with the top half to see how well this works.
While some sympathize with the children in the bottom half, little has been done to assist those in the RSD schools.
How the Top Half Operates
Start with the money. Charter schools have more of it than the RSD schools.
Each charter school is given a share of the federal $20.9-million-dollar grant. None of that money is available to non-charter public schools.
As the Cowen report notes, charter public schools also have advantages other than just financial ones over the rest of the public schools. Though funded by tax dollars, charters are granted greater autonomy over staffing, budgeting and curriculum than regular public schools. Charters have better facilities, fewer problems attracting staff, and can keep school class size small.
Charters are allowed to impose enrollment caps. These caps allow them to turn down additional students who seek to enroll. This keeps pupil/teacher ratios down and class sizes small - a universally recognized key to academic achievement.
Some of the top-tier public schools have explicit selective enrollment policies which screen out children with academic problems. Most of the remaining charters are technically supposed to be open enrollment schools but require pre-application essays, parental-involvement requirements and specific behavior contracts - allowing these charter schools the flexibility to "manage" their incoming classes, rather than having to accept every student who applies. At nine schools, traditional public school transportation is not provided, further limiting the choices.
A look at the Algiers Charter School Association (ACSA) web site illustrates how schools in the top half operate.
Financially, the ACSA budget reports expenditures of $27 million in 2006-2007, leaving an apparent surplus of $11 million. For 2005-2006, the ACSA was given $2.5 million from Orleans Parish School Board ($500 per student over and above their regular funding), a $6 million federal charter school grant, plus the state minimum foundation funds.
That is not all of the extra money. The ACSA has also received several major grants. For example, in June of 2007 the ACSA was awarded a special $999,000 federal grant to help improve learning in American history. In March, 2007 Baptist Community Ministries announced a $4.2 million grant to create a network among the charter schools.
The ACSA website includes their application process, which specifically spells out that student applicants will NOT be considered "on a first come, first serve basis." Decisions on whether an applicant is allowed to attend will be based on several factors, including scores on state examinations and whether the applicant has ever received any special education services for a learning disability or emotional disturbance.
Many of the other charter schools also benefit from special funds and special admissions policies. One of the most selective public charter schools, Lusher Charter School, received millions extra in special grants from Tulane University, FEMA, the State of Louisiana, a German Foundation which gave $1.1 million to renovate the gymnasium, and other foundations.
Wouldn't every returning student like to enroll in one of these schools?
Students returning to New Orleans who might seek to enroll in one of the top-half schools are likely to be disappointed. The deadline for enrollment at most of the charter schools has already passed. For example, applications to enroll in Lusher Charter for this fall were due December 15, 2006.
How the Rest of the School District Operates
By law, the RSD is required to accept any student who shows up, and is prohibited from having any selective admissions policy.
From the beginning, Louisiana officials charged with making policy and operating the RSD complained that they were being left with educating the "leftover children" after the charters and the selective schools took the children with the best academic scores and best parental involvement.
Damon Hewitt, a civil rights attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and a New Orleans native, discovered the reference to "leftovers" in an email sent by one of Louisiana's top education policy makers. The email is from Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) member Glenny Lee Buquet. She wrote in an internal BESE email in January 2007, obtained by Hewitt in a federal case, "We wanted charter schools to open and take the majority of the students. That didn't happen, and now we have the responsibility of educating the 'leftover' children."
Who are the "leftover children" in the RSD? Hewitt again: "The students served by the RSD are typically those who could not get into any of the fancy charter or selective admissions schools. They are the average New Orleans students - talented, creative and bright, but locked in poverty and out of opportunity."
The average New Orleanian child is our child. These children are the children of our sisters and brothers and cousins and coworkers. Yet they are categorized as, and treated like, something quite different by people in charge of public education.
The RSD has not been up to the job of educating New Orleans children because, from day one and continuing until today, it lacked the appropriate number and quality of people and the expertise to run a big urban school system.
One of the best illustrations of the problems of the RSD is their refusal to admit hundreds of returning New Orleans children to public schools in January of 2007. Instead, the RSD put these kids on a "waiting list." Public outcry and two federal lawsuits forced a quick reversal and the kids were put into RSD schools.
At the same time as the RSD put kids on a waiting list, "Thousands of empty seats and dozens of empty classrooms could be found in charter schools or in the city's selective or discretionary-admissions public schools" the New Orleans Teachers Report points out.
So why was there a problem? There was space for these kids in the charter public schools. But because the public charter schools are allowed to cap their enrollment they did not have to admit any new children. In reality, the main reason there was a problem was not space, but a shortage of teachers willing to work for the RSD.
Is it any surprise that the disorganized and understaffed RSD was having problems finding teachers for their schools?
The New Orleans Teachers Report indicates that many veteran teachers remain furious at the State of Louisiana and its RSD because they were fired and their right to collective bargaining was terminated. Teachers point out that veteran teachers hired in adjoining districts continue to enjoy collective bargaining along with the rest of the teachers. But not in New Orleans.
Uncertified teachers were widespread in RSD schools.
In fact, certified teachers from around the country who wanted to help by teaching in New Orleans were directed by the Teach for NOLA recruitment web site to charter schools. Uncertified teachers were directed to the RSD.
The RSD was still 500 teachers short at the time this article was written. In July of 2007, the RSD ran a $400,000 national campaign to try to hire an additional 500 teachers to start in the fall. The RSD is offering up to $17,300 in relocation and other incentives to try to get teachers into the system. If there are any teachers reading this, please come and help the children in the RSD Ð you are desperately needed!
As of July, the RSD was also working furiously to erect temporary modular buildings to house children when school starts in the fall. Meanwhile, neighboring St. Bernard Parish opened school in temporary school buildings two months after Katrina - nearly two years ago.
An indication of the fragmentation of the system are the many starting dates for New Orleans public schools. Some charter schools will start August 6, another on August 8. Five start August 14, others in mid- to late August. The two dozen or so RSD schools will open September 4 - in part to give more time to build new schools to open and to recruit teachers.
During 2006-2007 school security became a top issue. Consider the experiment of placing thousands of recently traumatized and frequently displaced children into schools without enough teachers or staff or facilities. Consider also that those who are charged with supervising the schools are inexperienced and understaffed as well. The logical outcome of such an experiment is insecurity.
The RSD spent $20 million on security. They had one security guard for every 37 students in 2006-2007, a rate nine times higher than the old public school security system. At one point there were 35 guards at RSD John McDonough Senior High, plus two off-duty police officers. Thirty-two guards started at another school in the fall.
This situation quickly prompted the Fyre Youth Squad, a group of high school students in New Orleans, to challenge the "prison atmosphere" at John McDonough High. There were more security guards than teachers at their school.
What impact does this have on education of children? Research shows that students feel more tense when they encounter security guards at every turn in a school, said Monique Dixon, a senior attorney at the Advancement Project, a Washington, DC civil rights organization that works with community groups on issues such as school discipline. "It becomes more of a prison on some levels where people feel they are being watched constantly instead of feeling protected," she said. "It creates a police state."
The financial implications of spending money this way are also troubling. While New Orleans spent $20 million on private security for around 50 schools, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the Philadelphia public school security budget for more than 260 schools was about $47 million, which included a 450-member independent police force, 150 auxiliary officers, and partnerships with more than 200 community members. In Detroit, the budget this fiscal year for the 400-member independent police force that protects the public schools, which has more than 100,000 students and more than 200 schools, was about $16 million.
Controlling students sometimes appeared to take priority over educating students.
Damon Hewitt points out that "the line between criminal justice policy and education got much blurrier over the past year and a half, as local schools have resorted to increasingly punitive approaches to school discipline. Relying more on police officers than community engagement, school officials' harsh responses to challenging behavior mirror public fear and sentiment about crime in the city. As a result, more children end up being suspended, expelled and arrested and sent to juvenile court. This phenomenon, which some call the School-to-Prison Pipeline, is literally robbing New Orleans of its most valuable asset - people."
"Some say that children in New Orleans are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," continues Hewitt. "But they are really suffering from the impact of Continuing Trauma - trauma that plays itself out every day. To the extent that children do act out [...] in schools, a lot of it has to do with both this continuing trauma and unmet educational needs, especially for those students in need of special education and related services. We cannot suspend, expel and arrest our way out of this problem. In fact, those harsh responses only make things worse by depriving young people of much-needed educational opportunity."
The academic results measured by standardized test scores given in spring 2007 at the RSD schools were predictably low. Nearly half the students failed in most fourth and eighth grade categories. Two-thirds of high school students failed in the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) and Graduate Exit Exam (GEE). The selective public schools had only an 18 percent failure rate on the GEE. LEAP scores for individual schools reported during the summer show what most expected: charter schools test better than RSD schools.
One current public school teacher, name withheld for reasons that will be obvious, was not hopeful.
"The public schools are totally fragmented. The struggles are still the same. Students still have difficult situations at home, some are still in trailers or living with too many people in one small home.
"Schools still lack books and materials, which I don't understand. After Katrina there were so many offers of help, both physical and monetary. I don't think that the people in charge knew what to do to organize a decent response to the offers.
"The RSD schools lack enough qualified and experienced teachers. The state Department of Education is well-intentioned, but they are barely dealing with the day-to-day issues and they still need to open more schools as people come back to the city.
"Yes, it sounds dismal. I don't see any big changes for next year. I think many of the charter schools have promise. The charters usually have a committed administration and staff and frequently a committed parent body. That is the secret to success."
Leigh Dingerson of the Center for Community Change in Washington, DC, who has been researching the New Orleans schools after Katrina, sums up the problems with the New Orleans experiment.
"In the 18 months since Hurricane Katrina, the infrastructure of the New Orleans public schools has been systematically dismantled and a new tangle of independently operated educational experiments has been erected in its place. This new structure has taken away community control and community ownership of all but a handful of schools. Instead, independent charter management organizations - virtually all from outside the state - are now running 60 percent of New Orleans schools.
"There are no more neighborhood boundaries. In a market-based model, parents are considered 'customers.' And they're supposed to 'choose' where to send their kids to school. But since every one of the charter schools was filled to capacity, hundreds of parents had no choice at all for their kids.
"Hundreds of kids with disabilities (who are often turned away from charter schools) are being placed in the under-resourced and over-burdened state-run Recovery School District. It's their only choice.
"This Balkanized school system is not closing a gap. It's opening a chasm."
The Cowen Report survey of the community agrees with much of the Digerson analysis, finding that "for many in the community, the RSD-operated schools are viewed as an unofficial 'dumping ground' for students with behavioral or academic challenges."
All indicators conclude that the RSD overall has done a poor job educating all the thousands of children in their half of the experiment, especially those with disabilities, because of RSD's own lack of expertise and experienced staff and because the schools they supervise lack the necessary teachers, support staff and resources.
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Next installment - What the Future Looks Like for New Orleans Children in Public Schools.
Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. He can be reached at quigley@loyno.edu.
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