An editorial writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote a scathing critique of Governor Bobby Jindal’s reform legislation: the haste with which it was adopted, the lack of forethought, the approval of schools to receive voucher students even though they had no facilities, the diversion of public money to private schools, the lack of accountability for private schools getting public money, and Jindal’s refusal to allow tax breaks for those who make donations to public schools (he supports tax breaks only for contributions to private schools). The editorial expressed appreciation for the fact that legislators were starting to ask tough questions, but concluded it would have been better had they asked tough questions before they voted approval for the legislation, rather than afterwards.
Not brooking any dissent, the Governor’s communication director responded with an email. His defense to every question raised: Look how terrible the academic performance of students in public schools is. Look how many received a D or an F last year (44 percent). Look how terrible the American education system is. Look how many nations got higher test scores than the U.S. in the latest international test. Companies that move to Louisiana can’t find skilled workers. Children get only one chance. We can’t wait.
Translated, his response means: We don’t know how to fix the public schools so we will hand out public money to anyone who wants it. Academic performance is so low that we will try anything, without any evidence, even if it means destroying the public school system and giving funds to tiny evangelical schools that have no resources or track record. We will give public money to anyone who wants to open a charter school, even though the charters we now have are no better than the public schools. Our public schools are so bad that we have no obligation to improve them. We will try anything even if the outcome for children is likely to be even worse than what we are doing now. Unspoken but implied: When you are the governor and you control the Legislature and the state board of education, you can do any thing you want, even something as wacky as sending children to religious schools that have no facilities and no evidence of a better academic program than the local public school.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NOLAed is not a model! Sad that this play has even taken place. Children are caught in the middle of these games. Our children have been through so much pain BUT this will no longer be…we New Orleanians will pull our community together and grab our children from these trolls…how dare you? we were here before any ships came ashore! Natives UNITE! We are INDIGENOUS TO THIS LAND! you are the Immigrants! #RAZA #jindal#DUNCAN#anglo go back to New YORK!
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I thought Paul Vallas already reformed New Orleans? These reformers reforms don’t reform for very long. How do they earn their stellar reputations?
Watch this New Orleans parent put him in his place:
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Linda, you must have missed this post about how districts are saved and reformed, but then have to be reformed all over again: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/05/18/289/
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I am a recent subscriber so I missed that one. Thank you for all your research and posting. How do we get the major newspapers to start investigating and writing about these opportunistic frauds?
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The newspaper business is in trouble and there are not many newspapers with education writers. The stories tend to be covered by reporters who have many other topics and don’t know that much about education. So the tendency is to take the press release and just write about what happened and what the officials tell you, and maybe to say something about the politics. But not many writers seem able to dig deep and tell readers whether the idea or the policy is sound.
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From the Baton Rouge Advocate this morning, written by one of the rare education reporters:
http://theadvocate.com/home/3100602-125/two-schools-under-scrutiny
It was buried in the back pages, but at least it was there…
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Just read the Baton Rouge article…what a complete circus….how do they spin this as being “for the children”?
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Believe me the spinning will continue until it falls and breaks. John White will move on and start the top spinning someplace else. Be sure you read Leonie Harrison’s comment. She has had direct experience with him while he was in NYC. If you are unaware, White was Pastorek’s choice when he left as superintendent and there was “no money” to do a national search for a new State Superintendent.
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Thank you for staying on top of educational news I fine nowhere else!
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The responses from the Governor’s office and the LDOE have become so pat, that when one reads them you begin to tell yourself, I’ve read this before”. There must be very few LA journalists who want to gain top recognition for investigative reporting on the reform saga. I agree that tough questions should have been asked before and during the passage of the rammed through reform package. I firmly believe that this was part of the strategy. There was such very little time to ask the questions and seek out the answers. I am certainly not defending the journalists. Newspaper editors should be taking much of the blame. More writers should have been assigned to cover such an important issue. It is not too late to keep investigating and get the truth to the public. It is too late to change the laws now. But, we do have elections in Nov. and we have another legislative session beginning April 2013. In the meantime lawmakers will have a lot of explaining to do and learn a lot of lessons.
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“We don’t know how to fix the public schools so we will hand out public money to anyone who wants it.” Exactly right; this is what John White, now State Ed Commissioner of Louisiana said when he was Deputy Chancellor of NYC Dept of Ed in testimony before the City Council. He admitted that he and the other educrats at DOE had NO IDEA how to improve schools so their strategy (if you can call it that ) was to open as many new schools and charters as possible, and close struggling schools, in hopes that this essentially random process would lift the system as a whole. Unfortunately this has proved to be unsuccessful in NYC and elsewhere, and has caused huge expense and tremendous chaos for communities and churn in the life of students, displaced from one environment to another, when they need stability and better learning environment.
As Robert Jackson, the chair of the NYC Council education committee has said many times to our Tweed educrats, if you don’t know how to improve schools, then resign and get out of the way, and allow real educators with proven ideas about reform to run the system.
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Thanks, Leonie, for this background information. He’s a young, cocky whippersnapper that is in a position that is ruining education in the Bayou State with the support of a very ambitious governor.
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Its worse than people realize. Most of the true data people are gone or silenenced. The longitudinal.database the feds gave Louisiana millions of dollars for has been abandoned and the halls of LDOE are being filled with politicians pulling down exhorbident salaries as long as they parrot the governors agenda. Who needs data when you just invent your own data to support your agenda as you go along? They also refuse to release data to anyone who wont write something favorable about them, hiding behind FERPA. They actually discussed that openly while I was there.
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