The next time you hear an “education reformer” talk about the miracle in New Orleans, tell them about this chart.
The “reformers” would like you to believe that New Orleans has solved the problem of low academic performance. All it took was a devastating hurricane to wipe out the public schools and sweep away the teachers’ union. In the wake of this cataclysmic event, goes the story, new and innovative charter schools arose, staffed by eager young college graduates willing to work 80-hour weeks. And everyone succeeded beyond the reformers’ wildest expectations.
The chart shows the proportion of students in each charter school and voucher school who were rated basic or above on state tests of reading and math.
You will notice that the statewide average (in a low-performing state) of students who reached basic or above was 75%.
You will also notice that only six of the charter-voucher schools met or exceeded this average (and two more came close).
The average proportion of students in the Recovery School District that reached basic or above was 49%.
Looking for a miracle?
Keep looking.
Diane
I live in New Orleans. It is interesting that charter schools have been able to spend gobs of taxpayer money on the one thing that public schools could never afford: a marketing/lobbying campaign (also include campaign donations for Jindal as revenue) to convince everyone in the country that the new system is working, when it most definitely is NOT. I know that people here are sensitive to the label of “worst school system” in the country, but covering up problems, rather than addressing them, never helped anything get better. I know that the fine people at Tulane thought they had all the answers. However, lying about progress only drags everyone else down (and by dragging everyone else down, I mean wasting taxpayer money), especially with our current fascination with “replicability”. At least the Libertarians who are crying about Big Government can see what happens when government withdraws support for such “outdated” institutions as our public schools. It’s no coincidence that with the worst schools come the highest incarceration rate in the country, along with the city’s highest per capita murder rate (which surprisingly has remained unchanged since the inception of our charter school system) Maybe if we paid more attention to “accountability” issues like suspension and expulsion rates, instead of burying and ignoring them (as we do with a lot of our young people), we could make a difference with our children. As long as we continue to pretend, our children will continue to suffer. What is Bobby Jindal’s lesson? The only way you will succeed in this state is if you are privileged to begin with, and you keep quiet about it.
Diane,
Do you think you should consider demographics?
Do you think you should consider the historical performance of the system and how the current performance compares?
Meanwhile, you write:
“The ‘reformers’ would like you to believe that New Orleans has solved the problem of low academic performance.”
Isn’t this a straw man argument? Maybe there are some that would like you to believe that statement, but do you think this is a fair representation of the typical statements coming from reformers in New Orleans? On my recent trip there, not one school leader suggested that they had solved the problem of low academic performance.
I don’t think it is a straw man argument. I have heard from many reformers that New Orleans is a turnaround district. The recent report of the Council of Foreign Relations (Klein-Rice) holds up New Orleans as a national model. Wendy Kopp’s recent book points to New Orleans as a district that proves that we don’t have to fix poverty, we have to fix schools. And the reformers always say that poverty is no barrier, so why look at demographics. The point of the chart is that a few charters are succeeding, some are doing about the same as the regular schools, and most are doing poorly. This is a nuanced picture and it is not the one we hear repeatedly from “reformers.”
I’m not sure which part of your comment here is serious (maybe all of it?), but certainly one should consider demographics and historical performance when analyzing recent school performance. Agreed?
Ken, apparently the reformers’ message hasn’t sunk in yet. According to the classic “reformers” there is no need to look at poverty or other socio-economic factors…. they are just excuses, and the reformers are about “No Excuses.” By the way, there are many districts in Louisiana looking very much like the RSD in terms of socio-economics, and they are outperforming the RSD every year.
Now, if we want to have an honest conversation, we will add admit that NO SCHOOLS have consistently and effectively overcome poverty, for example, except when we ignore the incredibly high ‘winnowing” of the KIPP schools and many of the RSD’s so-called “high-performing” schools. In many cases, schools that claim random assignment of students are actually using complex methods for only attracting the most motivated students from any group. In one of the larger Louisiana school districts, without magnet schools or charters skewing the data, the correlation between poverty (as measured by students closest to the poverty line, that is those qualifying for FREE meals) and school performance is a nearly perfect negative 1. Actually…. negative .989 to be exact. When claims are made that these schools take students three, four, five years below grade level and perform miracles, no independent researchers have EVER found confirmation of that. In fact, for the Recovery School District high schools making these claims…. the amazing thing is that it is NOT probable, or perhaps even possible, for students to make it through the high stakes 8th grade test if they are that far behind. If they were achieving this, we would also find evidence that other students are reaching the highest levels of achievement, and not just “meeting the standard,” but alas, we find no record of this.
We might decide that we serve kids well by cherry-picking out the most motivated kids out of low performing schools, and by giving them an environment where they are better able to succeed, among similarly motivated peers. We might find a way to do this where on the net all the kids are better off.
But, we have to be honest with ourselves about what we are doing and why it is working (if it does).
Ken,
You state “fair”, elaborate please, because there is nothing fair about taking away from public schools to give to the Enrons, Andersons, Gates, Murd..; (or better yet, the privileged giving money to the privileged to make money off those whom have no Internet service to blog with you sir.) Refer to the chart again.
(This might be a duplicate comment. If so, I apologize in advance.)
Diane,
Do you think you should consider demographics?
Do you think you should consider the historical performance of the system and how the current performance compares?
Meanwhile, you write:
“The ‘reformers’ would like you to believe that New Orleans has solved the problem of low academic performance.”
Isn’t this a straw man argument? Maybe there are some that would like you to believe that statement, but do you think this is a fair representation of the typical statements coming from reformers in New Orleans? On my recent trip there, not one school leader suggested that they had solved the problem of low academic performance.
On the contrary, almost all the “New Orleans Model” reformers claim to have “solved the problem of low academic performance.”
Here’s an excerpt from a the report “NEW ORLEANS-STYLE
EDUCATION REFORM: A Guide for Cities
LESSONS LEARNED 2004–2010”
“Ben Marcovitz, a founder of Collegiate Academies and principal at Sci Academy, has done what few others have. He started an open-admissions charter high school serving an economically disadvantaged student population, and proved that it is possible to take incoming freshmen reading at the fourth-grade level and achieve three-and-a-half grade levels of growth in one year. Sci Academy, without having a high-performing feeder school to send in students on grade level, is one of the highest performing, nonselective high schools in New Orleans. “I wanted to create a high school model that was relentlessly focused on closing the achievement gap for our scholars, a school that flips the academic trajectories of our scholars from being four or five grade levels behind when they entered to being ready for college when they graduate,” Marcovitz says.”
Elsewhere, Marcovitz says his charter took students five grade levels in two years. That sounds like a someone who thinks he has “solved the problem of low academic performance.” And the authors of the study sound like they believe this as well.
By the way, these claims were based on baselines from the schools internal testing.
Ken,
Diane’s slight of hand here is to compare New Orleans charters to the statewide average. If you compare New Orleans charters to the RSD (using the same data that Diane supplies), the results are significantly different. That said, New Orleans is on track, over the next few years, to surpass the statewide average for Louisiana. New Orleans is truly a miracle, it is working and other urban districts will follow suit.
In the meantime, the RSD continues to work to turn around failing district schools (such as John McDonogh that my group, Future Is Now is taking over on July 1) and closing failing charters (such as Abramson and Sojourner Truth) and replacing them with high performing alternatives.
-Gideon
There is NO trend that shows the RSD “on track” over the next few years to surpass the statewide average. Only by ignoring the huge jump between 2007 and 2008 when the schools were barely getting started, and ignoring the central tendencies, can anyone even pretend that the RSD is poised to beat the state average. By the way, this years growth was the lowest since 2007… what do you think happened? Also, we have to ignore the 16% plus of students that have no scores in the New Orleans RSD… if you ignore the lowest scores, it does go a long way toward creating a false impression of growth!
Gideon,
79% of the charters in New Orleans received a D or an F from the state.
New Orleans is one of the lowest-performing districts in a low-performing state.
It does not help children in New Orleans or anywhere else to engage in myth making about the glories of privatization.
Diane
Ken,
You state “fair”, elaborate please, because there is nothing fair about taking away from public schools to give to the Enrons, Andersons, Gates, Murd..; (or better yet, the privileged giving money to the privileged to make money off those whom have no Internet service to blog with you sir.) Refer to the chart again.
I am so tired of the New Orleans “great education miracle” mantra! I do believe there is miraculous PR for promoting the success. LDOE is now touring the state touting and introducing all the choices that are now available for students and with what miracles will occur because of these many choices. The charters, vouchers and the RSD are performing no miracles!
To Khirsch
why should demographics be considered?
the corporate reform crowd crows incessantly about how poverty is not an excuse, how vouchers are the solution to the problem, or charters are the solution to the problem, or non union teachers are the solution to the problem
well in New Orleans RSD, more so then anywhere else those solutions are in place, they are supposed to raise the students above the issues with poverty and socioeconomic background.
They don’t.
without a demographic breakdown this chart clearly demonstrates that point.
so instead of continuing to waste money on Charters and Vouchers, why not invest in community schools with structures and programs in place to help handle the outside problems, instead of denying they exist.
Thank heavens you are writing about this. To watch this nonsense happen before my eyes is unbelievable. I have worked in the system for 15+years as an itinerate teaching artist and saw things that worked and didn’t work. Now working for a non-profit art org I am seeing a huge experiement gone awry. The blatant lies about school’s improving is absolutely horrid to me. The arrogance of these TFA kids is insulting and I can’t believe the racism. How they talk to us is shocking. Schools that I taught at before katrina now have the lowest scores ever, even though I believe these tests are idiotic. Mr. Hirsh please bebe you sound like a KIPPer! I have been collecting data since the storm and documenting every school I go into and there are several more of us recording all the lies being told and dispect to our culture. Vive La Nouvelle Orleans!
And when the economy gets better, they will find the same quantity and quality of desperate college grads ? RIght.
Even if it functioned temporarily, this is no plan — it’s short-term opportunism of the sort you would expect from the private sector.
I suppose if the argument was whether New Orleans has eliminated the achievement gap, this data shows that that is not the case.
If the argument was whether New Orleans has made dramatic improvements in performance, this data is insufficient to make a judgment. My reading of the performance data (of which I am not at all an expert) suggests that New Orleans has made large improvements in performance since Katrina. I hope Diane has seen those sorts of analyses. Perhaps she has an opinion about them. I hope she doesn’t think that this post allows for that sort of analysis.
100% of the school leaders I spoke to told me that there is a very long way to go. Many of the school leaders were actually cautious about progress from here. They were optimistic about replacing or improving the worst schools, but concerned about the path to great schools.
I do think that some of the commentary on both sides of the New Orleans story is overheated. I encourage less exciting but more informative communication (although I often fail at it myself).
While it is safe to say New Orleans made test score progress since Katrina, it was doing so at the rate for 5% a year before Katrina which, at that rate, would put the old system at the same level of grade proficiency as the post-Katrina system. The question is always progress as compared to what? A modicum of progress is not a acceptable measure when the trade off is firing all the current teacher corp and abolishing local democratic control of schools.
I suggest that you look at the numerous reports by “Research on Reforms” (just google) that documents that much of the progress comes from manipulating data. One simple fact should make the public question the hype about New Orleans: in 2011 the state graded 79% of the state-run charters in New Orleans as D or F schools. In fact, after six years of state control, the “New Orleans Miracle” of privatization has created a system in which more than 90% of the students in state-created charter schools qualify for vouchers to, as the reformers say, “escape” failing schools. What kind of model of reform creates mostly failing schools and then creates a second reform model (vouchers) to remedy the first model?
Isn’t it true that the 2011 state grading system does not consider demographics at all?
I always look at demographics and attrition rates. It is the reformers who say that demographics don’t matter, that the same expectations can be set for all children because poverty is just “an excuse.” I don’t think poverty is an excuse. It affects children’s readiness to learn. I think it would be a big step forward if the “reformers” would stop saying that we can ignore poverty and focus instead of creating charter schools, which will one day fix poverty. Don’t believe me? Look at Bill Gates’ speech to National Urban League last year, or Wendy Kopp’s last book where she twice said that now we know we don’t have to fix poverty first, we need to fix the schools first. And she said it is happening in NYC, DC and New Orleans.
I agree that some of the claims of some reformers seem exaggerated. I hope we can agree that:
1. Demographics seems to be a factor in educational success.
2. Quality of schools seems to be a factor in educational success.
3. Let’s not use one of these two points to discount the other.
I think that some reformers say poverty is being used as an excuse, because they feel that point #1 is being used to discount the importance of point #2.
I think that some of these debates have elements of word games.
For example, some reformers say X and then some people that disagree morph that into “Reformers say X” with the possible implication that “All reformers say X”. I think the word “some” is underused in these debates!
As another example, some reformers say “Don’t use poverty as an excuse” and that gets morphed into “Reformers think poverty doesn’t matter” with the possible implication that “All reformers think poverty doesn’t matter”.
I think many prominent advocates on both sides play these word games, perhaps unintentionally.
The proof that the “reformers” (and it is fair to put most of them together, for nearly all of their POLICIES all stem from the same myths) believe that poverty and socio-economics shouldn’t matter ius that many of their claims about “failing schools” used to privatize DO NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT such factors. Yet, when they want to claim success, they suddenly move from a rhetoric of absolute scores as “failing” to one of “we have the highest growth.” Ignoring that growth is much, much easier when one is literally at the bottom, this ignores their own history of condemnation of regular public schools that do not pick and choose their students. To see how the reformers have used this method, check out my post at Harvard’s Nieman Watchdog. http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00511
The weighty danger in discussing statistics while omitting context is a trap into which Ms. Ravitch has, unfortunately, fallen. When presented inside the appropriate framework, the progress made by Recovery School District schools has been astounding: in 2002, only 18% of students in the schools which now constitute the RSD were testing at grade level or above in English, compared to 50.5% in 2011 in the real RSD. In 2002, only 12.7% of kids in the proxy RSD were grade level or above in math, compared to 50.8% of kids in the real RSD in 2011. While there was some growth in achievement before the takeover, the growth since the takeover has been considerably higher.
No one working in education reform in New Orleans will lay claim to having the silver bullet that will, alone, fix an education system that took decades to erode: there is much work left to be done. However, the progress that is rapidly being made towards that goal by hardworking men and women from a wide swath of communities across the city is to be commended.
Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools
sbaird@lacharterschools.org
One thing is for sure, the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools should be EXPERTS at discussing statistics while omitting context. It’s their bread and butter. They ignore attrition rates while boasting about student achievement. They rely on test scores as the sole measurement for school and teacher effectiveness (ignoring things like suspension and expulsion rates). They ignore research that shows closing schools and firing faculty doesn’t work….the mountains of valid and reliable research they have ignored in order to follow the corporate privatization ideology trumps everything else. What nerve to post that comment.
Thank you for your comment. I think it’s hard to make comparisons from 2002 because so many students did not return to New Orleans after the hurricane. I did note that 79% of the charters were graded either D or F by the state. I don’t like any of the grading, ranking and rating systems, and in my ideal world, here would be no letter grades for schools. The same people who promote vouchers and charters also promote this obsession with data. It’s all a distraction from the real purposes of education.