We’ll See About That
GOOD has a nice article about the role of bloggers in post-federal flood New Orleans, but I thought its article about New Orleans public schools was weak. First there’s the false framing:
The school buildings going up in New Orleans are part of the largest federal investment in school construction since the Civil War. But physical structures aren’t the only things being radically upended. New Orleans is now the only U.S. city in which a majority of students attend a charter school. As both projects move forward, we may soon find out if a city can be remade through its schools.
As if spinning off most public schools into charters is the only way for a city to determine “if [it] can be remade through its schools.” The article’s author takes at face value that charters = educational reform.
Then there’s this:
New Orleans is in the midst of the most ambitious system-wide reform in U.S. education history. So far, the laboratory is yielding impressive results—in four years, the percentage of failing schools has been reduced by half—but there is still, by all accounts, a long way to go.
The metrics here being used to determine success are accepted apparently without a second thought. I’m willing to bet in years to come the assessment data will be shown to be seriously flawed.
Tags: charter schools, education
