In all the hype and spin about the privatization of education in New Orleans, no one has heard from students. Various special-interest claim to speak for them, say “it’s all about the kids.” Some raise millions of dollars from corporations and ideologues by claiming to be student advocates. It turns out that students have their own views and need no surrogates.
Silent no more. High school students are speaking out. They are holding a rally on October 30 at 5:30 pm to insist that they be heard. See the details below.
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New Orleans students host first ever youth-led election forum for Orleans Parish School Board
Using their voices rather than a Super PAC, impacted students attempt to re-shape direction of a school system that has become a prime target of out-of-state political contributions and influence.
What: The Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association, in partnership with Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools and Orleans Public Education Network, will be mobilizing students and families from all across the city to engage candidates on issues that passionately concern them. A candidate forum of this scale, placing student voices at the center of the discussion, has not taken place in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. From food access, discipline policies, and transportation services, to charter governance, school closures, and resource inequality, student leaders will share testimony and ask the candidates to lay our their plans for improving academic achievement, democratic participation, and resource equity.
When: October 30th at 5:30 pm
Where: Ashe Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Bldv., New Orleans, LA 70113
Who: The Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association, Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, Orleans Public Education Network, Fyre Youth Squad, Young Adults Striving for Success, Puentes New Orleans, and students from McMain Secondary, Warren Easton, Benjamin Franklin, and Sarah T. Reed
Why: In recent state school board elections, billionaires Michael Bloomberg, Eli Broad, and Alice and Jim Walton gave $500,000 in political contributions to cement New Orleans’ status as the nation’s preeminent education reform test-tube. Yet, New Orleans students inside this national experiment have not been given meaningful opportunities to provide feedback on these reforms or vocalize their own visions for educational equity. Despite being the stakeholder group with the greatest first-hand experience of present schooling conditions and the most at stake in school board elections, student voices have been consistently drowned out by a well-financed, national education reform agenda.
Media Visuals: Students speaking at a lectern to present issues and questions; students moderating the event; students submitting comment cards; a room with 100-150 community members and youth from all over the city representing over a dozen organizations and schools.
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Here are the articles generated by the activist youth groups of New Orleans:
Press on our youth organizing work and campaigns:
EdWeek: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/11/02/10tran.h31.html? (tkn=PNPF+K6Ugps%2F6AuN60lliB8PhatGJThqZFXs&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS (Student opinion piece based on survey of conditions in six schools)
The Lens: http://thelensnola.org/2011/09/07/vayla-surveys-high-schools/
Times Picayune: http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/09/vietnamese-american_group_rate.html
Good Magazine: http://www.good.is/post/students-say-new-orleans-schools-are-no-education-miracle/
Louisiana Weekly: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/reed-students-present-turnaround-plan/
Louisiana Weekly: http://www.louisianaweekly.com/removing-the-mask-of-chartered-schools/
/www.louisianaweekly.com/n-o-east-residents-picket-outside-ben-franklin-high-school/
Times Picayune: http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2012/05/eastern_new_orleans_residents.html
The Lens: thelensnola.org/charters/eastern-new-orleans-students-want-more-reliable-faster-bus-service/
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
It will be interesting to see how the politicians react to the students: ignore them and keep touting their reform agenda, attack them as they attack others who disagree with their agenda, or stop and listen. It will be even more interesting to see how the public in general reacts: by paying attention and demanding a change or by having a short attention span as the politicians expect them to.
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As far as politicians, it will probably be something along the liines of how the poor little misguided dears simply don’t know what they’re doing or saying. They’ve only been “put up to it” by “activist” groups, blah, blah, blah.
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The unions made the students do this.
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This is a bold, powerful move on the part of these high school students. The impact should be huge. I look forward to reading follow-up articles about the October 30th event. As these independent-thinking students take control they should be wary of the slick “reformers” who will try to influence and reframe their message.
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And thus the pushback has begun…GOOD!!!
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Not sure where you’re coming from saying the reform leaders are disconnected from the city. My family has been in NOLA for over a century and has been involved in the charter school movement for decades, back when New Orleans Charter Middle was the only one.
We’re talking about a system where the valedictorian of Fortier (just a couple blocks from the private school I attended) failed the GEE and placed in the 1st percentile of the ACT. Regardless of your thoughts on test scores, this leaves no opportunity for my peers down the street.
Besides, Charter schools are not just measuring test scores. Drop-out rates have dropped an incredible 60% – and graduation rates have increased from 79% to 94% since Katrina.
I encourage you to check out http://educatenow.net. We’ve posted all the data there so you can see for yourself. Until then, please don’t post misleading information suggesting that out-of-state billionaires and politicians are running an astroturf movement.
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Really? So Mayor Bloomberg did not give $330,000 to the state board election? And contributions were not received from billionaires and millionaires from outside Louisiana to give control to Jindal and allow him to appoint John White despite his lack of credentials? And New Orleans is not ranked 69th of 70 districts in the state? And 79% of the charters in New Orleans got a grade from the state of D or F? Oh, I forgot, all those statistics were before Jindal gained control of the state education department. No doubt, the data will get better now.
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Oh, yes, and I recall too that the website you mention was created by Leslie Jacobs, the founder of the charter movement in New Orleans. Is that supposed to be an unimpeachable source?
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What’s the GEE??
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Who are you shilling for? Related to John White? Misleading info? Practice what you preach. No one is moving to your state for a quality education. You are the laughing stock of the nation. Get out of your reform bubble. Sorry for typos no power iPhone.
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Stan, I encourage you to dig deeper than Leslie’s blog which, while potentially well intended, is ultimately a positive hype machine that reflects reality only partially. I do appreciate EducateNow!’s recognition that this years HS gains were largely a numbers trick because of testing changes However there are deeper truths and realities that should disturb you and that EducateNow! is (unintentionally?) perpetuating. Every day i see rampant disenfranchisement of low income communities of black and brown families given the illusion of choice by an arrogant, paternalistic reform movement. In our schools children are not being counted as drop outs because of computer tricks, unethical practices by CMOs are going unchecked and unnoticed, a two fights and you’re expelled rule has only recently been removed at the most successful CMO, and uncounted kids chill on corners because no one is recruiting when the school hits it’s enrollement cap. Dig deeper Stan. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, white man’s burden, and the illusion of success.
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@all Let me be clear: I fully support these students’ initiative. I was part of something similar called YAT at O’Perry Walker when I was in high school, but unfortunately the initiative crumbled after our first few meetings as we couldn’t even agree on a structure for the organization.
@Diane If you find a mistake on that website, please let me know immediately and we’ll correct it! If you prefer, you can just download the raw data and skip the commentary entirely.
@Diane I won’t defend or support Jindal or the voucher program. However, 79% of schools failing or getting a D is inaccurate. In 2005, 83% of school were failing and today 40% are failing. You can download the data in Excel and analyze it yourself: http://educatenow.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012_District_Performance_Scores_Letter_Grades.xlsx
@Linda “You are the laughing stock of the nation.” – WOW! This seemed like a nice place on the Internet to have a good discussion, but now I see that even educators would rather insult and hate than have constructive conversations. Not sure what your agenda is, but if the means includes attacking concerned students online, I refuse to engage.
@Duane GEE = Graduation Equivalency Exam
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Jindal is a joke. White is a disaster. Your state is one of the lowest performing in our nation and New Orleans one of the lowest in your state. You were “saved and reformed” years ago by Vallas, the disaster as opportunity” eduhero/carpet bagging vulture. Even though he saved NOLA it still needs savings. I’ve said it before. There are a traveling circus of reformers reforming each others’ reforms while raking in the dough. They “bank” on poor memories and easily manipulated and uneducated citizenry. It’s working pretty well for them. The deprofessionalizing and public whipping of the lowly teacher coexists with the proliferation of educrats with little to no teaching experience making top dollar while destroying the public school system…. All bankrolled by the super wealthy who have figured out how to cash in while exploiting the poor brown children. The civil right$ i$$ue of our time….get it now?
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Stan(?),
Thanks for the info. Is that a state level end of HS test? Who takes it? Please help me understand what it is.
Thanks,
Duane
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@Duane Sorry, Graduation Exit Exam. Didn’t realize this was a Louisiana thing, having gone to school in LA myself. http://www.doe.state.la.us/topics/gee.html
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Thanks, I hadn’t read your last post when I posted my last questions. I’ll look into it and get back with my thoughts (although those who have been reading this blog for a while can probably guess what I will have to say about it-but want to look at it first.)
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Didn’t take long, thanks for the link. It’s just another standardized test (unfortunately in a long line of such tests).
You stated that you are a student so I will address you as such. I save my ire and disdain for those who make outrageous claims about their “reforms” without much evidence.
Let’s start with the fact that all educational standards and standardized testing is so fraught with error that any conclusions that might be drawn from them are, as Noel Wilson states, “vain and illusory” or completely invalid. See Wilson’s dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 or for a take down of the validity of any standardized test see his “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at: http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html .
One other thought that most don’t realize, the American Educational Research Association; American Psychological Association; National Council on Measurement in Education in the (2002) “Standards for educational and psychological testing” state that any usage of the results of a standardized test for purposes other than which it is designed is UNETHICAL.
Stan(?), please read these works as they will totally change your thinking about educational standards and standardized testing. You can even follow along with me as I review and discuss Wilson’s “Educational Standards. . . ” on my blog Promoting Just Education for All @ revivingwilson.org. The first three chapters are posted and I am looking to catch up with updating the site in the next week.
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is should be are in the first sentence of the third paragraph.
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Thanks for the thoughtful response Duane. I’m interested then by what measurement is NO ranked 69th in LA? By what measurement were schools getting D’s and F’s? I was responding to Diane’s comment under the assumption that these (inaccurate) statistics were based on test scores.
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Again the whole process of “grading” a school is so fraught with errors (Wilson identifies 13 sources of errors but there are more) that the rankings mean absolutely nothing as they are totally invalid. We are addressing/discussing a duende, a ghost, a chimera, etc. . . . We should instead be focusing on the actual teaching and learning process that occurs in each and every classroom not on some supposed “measurement” of “academic achievement”. All this “measurement” is based on the false premise that a quality, which is what teaching and learning is about, can be quantified. It is logically impossible to do so and therefore any and all conclusions are invalid.
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Not sure why you’re directing this at me; Diane brought up rankings.
How do you suggest we determine which techniques and are effective?
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Sarah Usdin is running commercials on Black radio in New Orleans with Black students, yet she did not show up for the Youth Led Candidates Forum to answer questions from students of color. Something is very wrong about this. Usdin’s excuse was that she was campaigning. She’s skipped out on several forums and radio interviews for candidates. I find it ironic that Stand for Children is mailing materials with her picture on it and knocking on doors carrying her campaign materials, yet Sarah Usdin did not show up and STAND before the students and answer their questions. Most of their questions were born out of their experiences in schools incubated or supported by Usdin. Our children are good enough to be used in her commercials, but she’s too good to come and answer to our children.
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