Louisiana matters hugely to the fate of American public because of the myth that Néw Orleans had a miraculous transformation once Hurricane Katrina wiped out the public schools and the teachers’ union.
Julian Vasquez Heilig here explains that the myth is a lie.
The Louisiana Department of Education controls the data and they are not releasing it. When they do, it can’t be trusted. Bobby Jindal purged the Department to make sure he can keep the tale intact.
And this lie is being used to destroy public education and teacher professionalism across the country.
Read this important post!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I love the hyperbole; I have envisioned this before as “moscow circus” and I would have some characters in costume as “mandarins”…. The Barnum’s crew is more closely aligned with “The Music Man” and has an endearing quality in American myth whereas “moscow circus” brings to mind for me the nefarious elements…. But this is probably my northeast NPR listening, Volvo driving, academic elitism so I don’t want to offend too many people or it will be a freezing cold winter and Texas and LA will want the “Yankees to freeze in the dark”…. Hubris ? Payback?
Here is a quote from THE QUEEN OF PALMYRA by Minrose Gwin that captures my hope for all of these reforms:
“If you grew up as I did listening to trains every single night, you could begin to hear the turning point where a train moves from its going to its coming. It is a slipping moment. The awful thing that is coming does not come. In its place is something ordinary, just another clattery train to make you toss and turn in the heat of the summer night.”
Here’s hoping the circus train and the voucher train and the charters competing with public schools via money taken away from public schools train, testing too much train, and unreasonable growth models determining teachers livelihoods train soon have that slipping moment.
I loved your train analogy; where I lived it was the end of the line and the trains would arrive and it was in the middle of winter so they just kept the engine running all night because it was too cold to turn the engine off; then, in the morning they would turn it around to head back the other way; it was difficult sleeping hearing that all night noise. The train analogy reminds me of the “Night Train” which is in my library this week about the use of trains in the holocaust. Not that there is a direct analogy here but just the way that trains have an impact on our lives and on history. thanks for your comment… I don’t know of the “slipping moment” but is it desribing the Doppler effect? I am really curious. Guess I will have to read Queen of Palmyra… thanks for posting
my grandfather worked for the railroad It’s in my blood!
I recommend Queen of Palmyra for sure. . .it’s like The Help without a pretty face.
Rather that is “coming to its going”. I reversed it by accident.