Bobby Jindal went to Virginia to boast of the miraculous transformation of education in Louisiana, all attributable to the magic of replacing public schools with privately managed, deregulated charters.
This is an oft-told tale, repeated again and again by advocates of privatization in both political parties and endlessly regurgitated by an uncurious and credulous media.
But something amazing happened when the Associated Press reported the story. It included the inconvenient fact that most of the charters in the much lauded Recovery School District had received grades of D or F.
Here is the astonishing quote from the story:
“However, New Orleans schools run by the Recovery School District still have a D grade on average while those outside of New Orleans received an F in the latest round of grades released in October.
“We’re not where we want to be but have made great progress in seven years,” Jindal said.”
Honest reporting, not just the customary recycling of the politicians’ press releases.
Now THAT is a miracle.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s because it’s an article bythe AP. An Advocate staff writer would never write that.
Typical lies and lack of proper reporting by our “Not Free Press.” If these ideological so called reporting systems known as the press did their job and reported facts and how they fit together these privatization and corporatization efforts would immediately cease in disgrace for their lack of concern for our youth and the countries future. Take a look at Roosevelt High School in LAUSD which is under the control of Mayor Villaraigosa’s PLAS Schools. It has been a total failure for 5 years under PLAS and LAUSD as the so called oversight and authorizing agency. All you have to do is look a the latest DOE OIG report on the total failure of oversight of charter schools in Florida, Arizona and California with LAUSD being a named school district. This audit is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. Also, now in California we also have a report by the States Senate which is showing how they steal Title 1 Free Lunch money. When does it end and when will law enforcement start to prosecute those criminal offenders as it should?
Hasn’t Vallas been a failure every place he goes? And they all need to be reformed after he leaves (Chicago, NOLA, Philly…his newest victim: Bridgeport, CT).
Just another carpet bagging reformer creating future reform opportunities for his cronies. What a crock.
Just google Paul Vallas and Jonathan Pelto for the details.
I agree as a quick of the facts everywhere Vallas has gone there has been both and educational but financial failure also. How is it in this twisted world we live in that the worst rises to the top. This is antithetical.
If there ever was a carpet bagging Edushyster wizard-behind-the-curtain shelling payola to his crony eduvultures it IS Paul Vallas.
More on NOLA/Vallas here and Karran Harper-Royal:
Karran Harper-Royal, an advocate for all children in public schools, works tirelessly in New Orleans and beyond in ensuring an equitable education for all against many odds.
Mrs. Harper-Royal has begun a collection of video recordings of herself and others as they describe the reality of the so-called miracle of New Orleans charter schools.
The first video is one of Mrs. Harper-Royal as she speaks in front of the school board in New Orleans in 2011 when promises by Paul Vallas, then the superintendent of the New Orleans School District, were not kept.
By the way, Paul Vallas is another superintendent associated with the Broad Foundation who began his path of destruction through the privatization of public schools in Chicago as CEO of public schools, then in Philadelphia then on to New Orleans and now in Connecticut and all for personal gain. He is now working with Inter-American Development Bank on a five year plan to “reform” the schools in Haiti.
The fact that these RSD grades made it into the paper is wonderful news. RSD has NEVER held what Jindal considers “passing,” an A or B. He set up the system, and his state-run schools are failing using the Jeb Bush, ALEC-created criteria Jindal now promotes nationwide. In fact, on one data set that I have, one that was sent out to superintendents and BESE, LDOE included a “blended” grade whereby RSD-NO (grade D) and Orleans (which received an A) are combined in order to make RSD-NO look better at the expense of Orleans (the public, non-state-run system). The blended grade doesn’t even save RSD: it is a C, which Jindal is all-too-happy to tout, out of the other side of his mouth, is still considered “failing.”
I was not able to attach the data spreadsheet here, but anyone who wants a copy can email me at deutsch29@aol.com and I will happily send it.
John White never meant for the public to see this data set, and he has taken great pains to make school data in general virtually inaccessible using the “newly-updated” LDOE website.
Thanks Dr. Schneider, for your tireless efforts to get the truth out. Makes me wonder what the actual Press spends their time doing. It amazes me that the info is so slow to get out there. RSD has been failing for years while our governor goes around the nation praising his successes. NOLA mayor repeating same on Charlie Rose last week. Taking them at their word and no one questioning. Amazing!
“The time for tolerance for failing schools is over,” McDonnell said at a news conference. “That’s what’s driven a lot of our reforms this session.”
The time for tolerance for idiotic legislators and self-serving edukational rheeformers is over!
The time for tolerance of childhood poverty is over. As Gandhi said… Poverty is the worst form of violence.
From Mary K. Bellisario, VP of St. Tammany Parish School Board (Louisiana) :
The Associated Press at least printed some of the truth about the RSD:
“However, New Orleans schools run by the Recovery School District still have a D grade on average while those outside of New Orleans received an F in the latest round of grades released in October.”
They didn’t print what the School Performance Score (SPS) for the RSD is, or how many schools in the RSD aren’t even reporting their scores because they’re in the re-chartering process due to academic failure. They don’t have to report for three years. This could take that RSD average even lower.
Too bad the AP didn’t go further and print that the RSD — in N.O. and in other parts of the state — still ranks last out of 70 school districts in our state, where they have ranked for the past seven years. This would have put Jindal’s remarks more in perspective.
Last year’s stats show that out of 70 districts only two–the RSD run by BESE, and St. Helena partially run by BESE–were actually “failing” districts. Their reported SPS’s didn’t reach the passing grade.
Last year every other school district in the state — run by locally elected school boards, not BESE — was above “failing.” But Virginia and other states will not be told that.