A teacher in New Orleans writes:
Oprah’s documentary series about John McDonogh High School in New Orleans was moved to tonight @ 8p Central Time, in order to follow Beyonce’s show.
Please comment on Oprah’s page, if you find that her show does not accurately tell the whole story, and if your perspective on the history of the school is different. I personally find the preview to be highly stereotypical about New Orleans, it’s mostly black unionized teachers (pre-charter), black students, the need for white savior charter operators and TFA teachers. In my 3+ years as a teacher at this school and English Department Chair, I never saw a fight, nor did any students ever put their hands on me. However, I did see the state run Recovery School District (RSD) set the school up to fail by giving the school administrator after administrator, not accurately staffing the school, having classes over the state maximum (my max was 54), leaving the building in decrepit condition, under resourcing the school (no science labs) removing honors & advanced placement classes and replacing them with extra remediation classes, etc. But we’ll see how the show is tonight…
http://www.oprah.com/own-blackboard-wars/blackboard-wars-blog.html
Oprah should watch the “John McDonogh Legacy Lost” series, created by students, and interview community members about their historical struggle for the school.
Some have expressed an interest in creating a facebook page titled: “The Truth About John McDonogh.” Anyone interested?
Elizabeth Jeffers, M.Ed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I just drove past McDonough this afternoon, and I thought, “That building is in use as a school?” The sign out front is new, but the building looks abandoned.
And while we’re at it we need to set Oprah straight about Michelle Rhee…another James Frey moment for the queen of television. Can Oprah even admit to her mistakes?
Billionaires Don’t Make Misteaks …
Oprah is another “elite” who lives in a bubble. It’s pathetic to see so many people flock to her shows, and subscribe to her magazine to try and find some meaning in their own lives.
I’ll create it. This is getting to be overwhelmingly too much to stomach.
I tried to leave a comment. It said it was “sent to review.” Ha!!!
I just watched it. This may seem like a very stupid comment, but I was shocked to see the teacher–who identified herself, I believe, as the head of the math department–wearing the extremely low-cut, tight, red dress. I absolutely cringed every time she bent over in front of her students. In fairness, I did not see her wearing anything as objectionable in other segments. I was really surprised not only that the teacher chose to wear such attire and that it was allowed (never in any school I ever taught in, especially not middle or high school!!), but also that it was not edited from the final cut. Rather ironic, when, I think, they were trying to show this school in a positive light. Oh–and I would hope that someone wouldn’t try to answer my comment with, “They were attempting to show a real school situation, both good and bad,” because,no, NO school (at least public!) administration (and teaching peers) would EVER stand for that kind of dress.
I will look and review. However, I was done with Oprah once she supported Charter Schools, Bill Gates and Michele Rhee. This might take awhile!
Me too!
Me too. She is a shill for ed “reformers” even with all her billions.
I was done with Oprah about 15 years ago. I can’t remember exactly what topic she was discussing when I decided that she wasn’t worth any of my time anymore. I am afraid that I will have to read what other people have to say about the show because I can’t stomach the woman.
I didn’t watch it because (like Lynda and Betsy) I gave up on her once she started to believe in the failed mechanisms of self-aggrandizing wealth. She used to focus on the trials/tribulations and successes of the unlikely heroes and the inspiring people who helped make it happen, then she started giving away stuff to her studio audience and promoting the Rhees and Gates who have been given undue influence over the unlikely heroes. I don’t want to find a set of car keys under my seat, I don’t want you to focus your wealth and power on undermining the job that needs to be done. Get behind the people who can do it and help, or just get out of the way.
Well said, Dan. Thank you!
Yes — can I borrow the phrase “the failed mechanisms of self-aggrandizing wealth”?
Oprah knows ALL about schools. She has her own in Africa, remember?
Just another know-it-all.
Oprah knew of the petition started over 2 years ago to book Diane Ravitch after her tribute show to “Waiting for Superman”, and she never followed through. Instead she formed an alliance with Rhee. And if you recall, there were many comments on her website after that show that were later deleted. So I do not trust anything about schools that comes out of her network.
And she was or is responsible for ONE school in Africa and there were problems and she was embarrassed. So maybe it is not so easy Oprah. It must be difficult to be very wealthy and know what is best for all of us without actually knowing anything about what teachers actually do…the truth is difficult to swallow. The spin and lies are easier to sell.
Now we have the reality TV circuit manufacturing an image (note the overlapping soundtrack) to reinforce the charter school myth. What reality TV constructs is research-lite. It proposes to give insight, yet in this case, the proposal is cloaked with the intent to forward the privatization of education –research bias at its finest. What is consistently apparent in charter schools is the pick and choose basis of its student population while siphoning monies intended for public education –education as commodity while the neo-liberal train rolls on. A disturbing actuality about the reality-genre, is that TV shows in the past (from Leave it to Beaver to Family Ties and onward) constructed a wall between the viewer and the constructed image plastered on the screen. Viewers for the most part had an understanding that “life is not like that.” Now the wall has become permeable, luring the viewer to “believe” that the actuality exists and the marketing agents are absent from the narrative. What we witness today is an illusion that the marionette’s strings have been severed. Furthermore, the critical lens to examine, find limitations, and query further is never proposed or suggested. The proof is in the pudding and celebrities like Ms. Winfrey are the peer-review validation to such pseudo-research. Why have a discourse about education when the bottom line dictates the propagating narrative of choice.
Oprah is so full of herself. I stopped watching her when I saw her promote the charter garbage on her show and promote Rhee’s bs. I heard her talk about how teachers have jobs for life, blah, blah, blah. No I don’t watch. Her ego is a mile wide. She made her wealth from pure exploitation of people’s tragedies. The worst was when she started to bring on religious flakes and gurus. Have you seen her promote “If I think positive, positive things will happen to me.” Really? There have been a lot of people in history who have had horrible things happen to them. It surely wasn’t because they didn’t think positive enough. I really hope her network tanks. She has no clue what is happening in the privatiztion movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WHL3YCv1ac This is a video of Louisiana state superintendent John White promising things for the school when he was head of the Recovery School District in NO. Just 16 months ago……
This makes me think of an article Teju Cole wrote for The Atlantic in which he described the white savior complex in the West as coming from “white people and Oprah.” I thought the phrase was perfect. I should probably watch and write about this episode, but not sure I can stomach it either.
I always find it amazing that people are so willing to vehemently defend a failing school. While I am not sharing my opinion on the way in which the school was ran, and by who, I do take issue with defending a school that has for the past 2 decades struggled to provide a basic education to its students. Of course the school did not get this way overnight nor will it be fixed in the coming months. But it is worth noting that someone is willing to try and turn it around. If this were any other business the school would have been shut down years ago. So to cling to the days of lore to me is unfounded and antithetical to everything educators fight for.
What about accountability for those who ran the system?
The students, parents, and teachers didn’t control resources.
I contend that the term “failing school” is itself a kind of shorthand.
Actually it means the students’ test scores are low while their poverty rate is high. It means the students live in an inner-city, disadvantaged neighborhood, where decent jobs are rare, beset by violent crime and a drug trade. It means the students live in a part of the city with aging infrastructure and little reinvestment.
So this is what I find amazing: that if one protests DoE’s policies of school closings and turnarounds as destabilizing to a very vulnerable community, they are accused of “defending a failing school.”
Nothing of the sort.
The DoE turnarounds have not been proven to work. But they have been proven to destabilize.
CPS hasn’t been able to keep track of 7,000 students who appear to have left longer school after the last round of school closings. Know word of where they ended up.
And Paul Vallas has been riding his white horse throughout the country touting his reforms as he caravans from city to city.
I thought he reformed NOLA, what happened?
Why aren’t these “leaders” ever held responsible?
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for posting! The “New Orleans Imperative” just aired a critique of “Blackboard Wars,” and the radio show will continue that critique in a few weeks. Archives can be found here: http://theneworleansimperative.org/archives/
“Blackboard Wars” presented misinformation of statistics. It claimed that the school had a 30% attendance record when, in fact, attendance was 78.4% in 2009-2010 and 76.2% in 2010-2011 (the state did not release data for the 2011-2012 school year). This is documented here: http://theadvocate.com/news/4935946-123/tempers-flare-over-school-as
“Blackboard Wars” also claimed that 70% of the neighborhood was not graduating, when, in fact, in 2009, John McDonogh had a 90% graduation rate, which Paul Vallas (Arne Duncan’s friend from Chicago) boasted about. As documented here: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/john_mcdonogh_high_sheds_bad_i.html
Moreover, John McDonogh met Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) during the 2010-2011 school year, even with a 12.6% special education population. There is no data for the 2011-2012 school year because the state did not release results for this school and a few other schools.
The John Mc that I graduated from in 1972 was never this vile. This episode seems to devalue and marginalize the student population and the surrounding community. Oprah needs to do some homework and spend time with the city leaders who abandon the school and set the student up for failure by not investing in the school while promoting the charter school system….it’s like playing a football game without the ball. What’s the point?
I used a lot of stuff from Oprah in my book. I had not planned to, but it was there, such as “It’s really in our hands as citizens and I believe that Michelle Rhee is one of the people that can turn this dire situation around,” she exhorted on December 6, 2010, “sign up at StudentsFirst.org, get yourself fired up, let’s stop complaining about it – log in and do something!”
At least Oprah did not say, “You go, girl!” But she might as well have. Just listen to Oprah: “That’s a gargantuan task. , , , God bless you for this – this is really the Lord’s work you’re taking on. . . . I know, really, I’m not going to cry, but I could, the little hairs on my head are raising. You know, I don’t have the know how to fix it . . . I’ve been saying someone needs to fix it and the fact that you’ve stepped up and said, ‘I want to be the person to do it,’ God Bless you for that.”
After a hardy high five that turns into a thumb circle handshake, Oprah continues, shouting and clenching her fist as the audience applauds, “Somebody needs to fix it! You can do it! I am behind you! We are behind you!” Oprah finally says that today her show is a platform for “an urgent call to action.”
The whole thing looks like an infomercial to advance StudentsFirst. Michelle Rhee reports, with a saddened countenance on the results on one international test. The tests results are not representative, but she is not questioned; Oprah repeats the results and says they are not acceptable. Michelle Rhee says tenured teachers have a job for life and Oprah tells her audience they have a job for life. Plus, her audience is America. “America, hear me now,” Oprah says looking into the camera,” this is a seminal moment for us . . . we, the citizen of this country [will choose] to move to the top of list . . . out of 30 developed nations, the United States of America is #23 and 25 [in reading and math] so we’re either going to fall further behind or choose to move forward.”
Maybe her network can have a new series:
Oprah’s failed moments…a million little episodes.
So….what are you really saying? You said what Oprah said and what Michelle Rhee did…but what is your opinion?
Even if I assume Tombstone 7 is not being as sarcastic as I can be and my opinion is not clear, it is clear that there is a coordinated effort on the part of a well-heeled elite to do something destructive about public education. Why is still of a mystery to me, but let it suffice to say that if it is, as Oprah says, God’s work, then I’m not a believer.
If that is not enough, I have posts on this site on Michelle Rhee in which I often refer to our friend, the Jersey Jazzman, who did a very nice series about her performance on the Daily Show. As for Oprah, I do not get it, but I tried to make some sense of it and if you want to see my muddled effort, you can look at my muddled book, Respect for Teachers. [https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475802078] . Just so you know, the title is ironic.
Not being sarcastic. I missed your point and I thank you for the clarification.
Sorry Tombstone, but from your name i thought you’d be one for dead pan humor.
Oprah is a waste of time.
Oprah is much too much into “Oprah! Just look at every issue of her magazine, whose image is on the cover? Oprah would rather devote her name recognition and wealth to a South African school instead of a school in Chicago, New York City, Detroit, or Los Angeles.. Concerned social scientists and educators wake up! Oprah and too many individuals and institutions cannot think outside of the box when they’re so involved in their individual boxes.. Teachers, regardless of ethnicity, can make a considerable difference in turning around the achievement gap if they focus on their students’ backgrounds, with an understanding of cultural differences and learning styles of their students.. Instead of getting rid of our teachers, lets train them to effectively and meaningfully engage in culturally relevant teaching strategies along with relevant curriculum.. America has become and will continue to be a multi-cultural society..
Our school system must meaningfully address the issue of cultural differences within its inner-city low-income school districts, which are predominately African-African and Latino student populations.. Remember, “there are many roads which lead to Rome and it is not always desirable to take the royal road..” Concerned social scientists and educators, please read my new innovated book” The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement: Failure of America’s Public Schools to Properly Educate its African American Student Populations.. The book is currently available on Amazon.com, or, Rosedogbooks.com..