bark, bugs, leaves, & lizards

We’ll See About That

by dsb nola on July 16, 2010

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.

Why I Dread Leslie Jacobs Being Named To Mayor Landrieu’s Ed Task Force [Updated]

by dsb nola on March 9, 2010

Matthew Yglesias:

The world of education politics often seems oddly dominated by the presupposition that doing one thing somehow precludes you from doing anything else.

G Bitch:

When the problem is reduced to a nail, only hammers are the solution.

b rox:

If the model kills people after two years, what do they become after, say, thirteen years? Do they become zombies? Or are they just miserable?

Update: I was wrong about Leslie Jacobs being named to the task force.  I’m glad about that but it certainly seems tilted towards charter proponents, in a big way.

Schools du jour

by dsb on June 25, 2008

The 8th Annual National Charter Schools Conference is in New Orleans this week. I’ve been poking through the program and I see the Conference has named three educators to the Charter School Hall of Fame. Heady stuff! So what’s bigger, the Charter School Hall of Fame or the Charter School Hall of Shame?

I sure hope the Rising Tide III Conference can do better than this:

The Greatest Education Lab: How Katrina Opened
the Way for an Influx of School Reformers
Charter School Design, Instruction, and Leadership
The panel will discuss human capital accomplishments and challenges in public education in New Orleans. This session will be a collaborative effort, discussing what has worked in NOLA thus far, how various aspects could be replicated in other urban settings, and how to attract the very best school leaders and teachers.
Presenters: Sarah Newell Usdin, New Schools for New Orleans; Matt Candler, New Schools for New Orleans; LaToya Cantrell, Andrew Wilson Charter School; Kira Orange Jones, Teach for America.

Something has worked? I missed that part.

I also hope RT3 can do better than this:

In New Orleans, supporters tout the city as the test case for reform. Louisiana charter school director Kenneth Campbell said many at the conference expressed excitement about the New Orleans charter explosion, though some question how the city will manage the growth.

Let me be very clear about how I feel about the school systems in New Orleans: If we ever move away from New Orleans, it will likely be because of profound disgust with the schooling options.

I’m fine with charter schools as incubation chambers for new teaching practices, but such experiments should be limited in scope, not a system(s)-wide approach. From where I sit it looks like charters will lead to quasi-privatization of public schools (if we’re not already there). The charter schools in New Orleans that are deemed “good” schools (that’s relative, btw–the good schools here would be mediocre at best in many other communities) were “good” magnet schools before the fed flood. In other words, it’s change I can’t believe in.