-- a month later in November, the state legislature voted to take over 107 (84%) of the city's 128 public schools and place them under the state-controlled "Recovery School District (RSD);" and
-- in February 2006, all unionized city school employees were fired, then selectively rehired at less pay and fewer or no benefits; it affected 7500 teachers as well as custodians, cafeteria workers and others.
Within six months of Katrina, the city was largely ethnically cleansed, the public schools infrastructure mostly gutted, and a new framework was in place. It put NOPS into three categories - public, charter and the Recovery School District with the latter ones run by the state as charter or for-profit schools.
New Orleans Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley described the plunder and called it "a massive (new) experiment....on thousands of (mostly) African American children...." It's in two halves.
The first half based on Recovery School District's estimated 30,000 returning students in January 2007:
-- "Half of (these children were) enrolled (in) charter schools." They got "tens of millions of dollars" in federal money, but aren't "open to every child....Some charter schools have special selective academic criteria (and can) exclude children in need of special academic help." Others "have special administrative policies (that) effectively screen out many children." This latter category has "accredited teachers in manageable size classes (in schools with) enrollment caps....These schools also educate far fewer students with academic or emotional disabilities (and) are in better facilities than the other half of the children...."
"The other half:"
These students were "assigned to a one-year-old experiment in public education run by the State of Louisiana called the 'Recovery School District (RSD)' program." Their education "will be compared" to what first half children get in charter schools. "These children are effectively....called the 'control group' of an experiment - those against whom the others will be evaluated."
RSD "other half" schools got no federal funds. Its leadership is inexperienced. It's critically understaffed. Many of its teachers are uncertified. There aren't enough of them, and schools assigned students hadn't been built for their scheduled fall 2007 opening. In addition, some schools reported a "prison atmosphere," and in others, children spent long hours in gymnasiums because teachers hadn't arrived. In addition, there was little academic counseling; college-preparatory math; or science and languages; and class sizes are too large because returning students are assigned to too few of them.
Many RSD schools also have no "working kitchens or water fountains (and their) bathroom facilities are scandalous....Hardly any white children attend this half of the school experiment." RSD schools are for poor black students getting short-changed and denied a real education by an uncaring state and nation and corporations in it for profit.
Quigley described a system for "Haves (and) Have-Nots," and race defines it. He also exposed the lie that charter schools are public ones. Across the country, but especially in New Orleans, school officials are unaccountable, can pick and choose their students, and can decide who gets educated and who doesn't.
Separate and Unequal
In his 2005 book "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America," Jonathan Kozol explains a problem getting worse, not better. Using data from state and local education agencies, interviews with researchers and policy makers, and the Harvard Civil Rights Project, his account is disturbing at a time of NCLB and other destructive initiatives.
Harvard Civil Rights researchers captured the problem in their Brown v. Board of Education 50th anniversary assessment stating: "At the beginning of the twenty-first century, American public schools are now 12 years into the process of continuous resegregation." Desegregation from the 1950s through the late 1980s "has receded to levels not seen in three decades." The percent of black students in majority-white schools stands at "a level lower than in any year since 1968" with conditions worst of all in the nation's four most segregated states - New York, Michigan, Illinois and California. "Martin Luther King's dream is being celebrated in theory and dishonored in practice" by what's happening in inner-city schools. King would be appalled "that the country would renege on its promises," and the Supreme Court would authorize it in their two above cited decisions and an earlier 1991 one:
-- Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell that ruled for resegregating neighborhood schools mostly in areas of the South where desegregation was most advanced.
According to recent National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data, blacks and Latinos now comprise about 95% of inner-city students in the nation's 100 largest school systems - accounting for more than one-third of all public school students. Kozol writes about "hypersegregation" with "no more than five or 10 white children (in) a student population of as many as 3000," and this is the "norm, not the exception, in most northern urban areas today." It's "fashionable," he says, to declare integration "failed" and settle for a new millennium version of "Plessey" and its "separate but equal" doctrine that "Brown" repudiated until now.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
The author has problems with every aspect of our education system except two: unions and the maintaining the status quo. It would have been nice to hear his take on the role unions play in determining every aspect of running our schools. It would have been nice to hear a comment on the fact that the rise of unionism in the schools parallels the decline of education in this country.
His viewpoints coincide with those of the unions. It is clear that the teacher's unions are not acting in the best interest of the children of this country. They oppose every reform, good or bad. If we truly want to improve education in this country then we have to limit union input into the educational system.
Charter schools can be a good thing. My son transferred to one after he stood up to a teacher trying to indoctorinate him in the public schools. I was called in for a 'teachers meeting' and sat in a room full of progressive, like minded unionized robots who were interested only in making my son toe THEIR line. In stead of using what my son said as a basis for dicsussion the teacher turned the class loose on him like a pack of rabid dogs because she did not agree with what he said. My son stood up for himself and recognized what happened and kept on arguing. This was not permitted in our Fascist school systems. Submit or else, so I was called in so I could help him see the errors in his ways. Big mistake on their smug, know-it-all part. He was in a charter school the next week. The charter school he went to was entirely different. Teachers cared about the students and worked hard to ensure they succeeded. Why? Because their salary increases and their jobs depended on it. They did not have a union protecting their smug political attitudes and teaching incompetence. Teachers, students, and parents at the charter school worked on one goal, the education of that student. A marvelous school. I would suggest to the author that he go visit a local charter school and a local high school and see what the differences are if he can in one visit. Talk to the parents instead of reading so called research by politically motivated and union financed or influenced groups.
All charter schools are not perfect by any means. But in my case I am glad that I had a choice. If I hadn't been working I would have home schooled my son. It is too bad others who are trapped in union run school systems do not have a choice if their school in a cesspool of educational incompetence. The unions don't want people to have that choice because it will be their death knell and they know it. The author knows it too because that is why he finds nothing but fault with all reform efforts. He wants children under the thumb of teacher unions. Teacher unions fight against reform like NCLB because they do not want to be held accountable for educating the children they deal with. I would have loved to have worked in a job where I wasn't accoutable for what I did. Be responsible? It isn't the Progressive/union way. The author wants to make the President responsible for want goes on in the classroom or whether school XYZ is successful or not. That is flat out ridiculous. The teachers, the administrators, the parents and the students are responsible, not some out-of-touch politician sitting in Washington no matter what his or her party is.
President Bush and Senator Kennedy should be given a little credit for trying to do something to end the evil stranglehold unions have on the educational system. No one else dares to buck the unions. The Progressives sure won't so you will not see any meaningful educational reform if a Democrat gets elected. More money for education (teacher's unions) doesn't equal reform. $25,000 / child is spent in Washington DC and they have one of the worst educational systems in the US. Money is not the answer. Accountability is. Non-unionized schools are.
by
Mad Jayhawk (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 313 comments)
on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 7:03:55 PM
There is no connection (unless you want to create one in your mind) between the teacher who promotes certain views in the classroom and the Unions. BTW, the comment above does not say what particular views of his son were considered and why the teacher was so upset. Big deal, really. BTW, the schools are not 'run by the unions'. They are run by school boards and those boards are elected by the local taxpayers. THAT is the problem. Public education in the US is paralysed because of the local taxes' funding. It has to be national, standardised, equal and have the same level from top to bottom. As for the non-unionised schools- private or charter- so be it if you can afford those. But unions themselves as the ones of professional people are a blessing as soon as the schools are in sorts toys of the local governments.
Returning back to the comment above: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. You always find what you seek. Wrong method of teaching can be interpreted as 'union bias', etc. The US public education suffers from one and only one disease- IT IS NOT PUBLIC!
That's the issue. And no homeschooling can correct that.
by
Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3462 comments)
on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 8:57:19 AM
2 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
