Jeff Bryant demonstrates that “school reform” (aka privatization) has hit a rough patch. Despite the giant publicity machine of the well-funded “reformers,” their claims are falling apart.
Louisiana’s all-charter Recovery School District is in fact one of the lowest performing districts in the state. It is not a model for any other district.
Bryant writes:
“There’s no evidence anywhere that the NOLA model of school reform has “improved education.” First, any comparisons of academic achievement of current NOLA students to achievement levels before Katrina should be discredited because the student population has been so transformed.
“Second, despite reform efforts, the NOLA Recovery School District has many of the lowest performing schools in Louisiana, which is one of the lowest performing states on the National Assessment of Education Progress (aka, the Nation’s Report Card).
As Louisiana classroom teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider reported from her site, RSD schools perform poorly on the state’s A–F grading system. “RSD has no A schools and very few B schools. In fact, almost the entire RSD – which was already approx 90 percent charters – qualifies as a district of ‘failing’ schools according to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s definition of ‘failing’ … Ironic how the predominately-charter RSD has the greatest concentration of such ‘failing’ schools in the entire state of Louisiana.”
In Néw Orleans, the “reformers” have achieved their goal–to eliminate public education–but their model doesn’t get good results. Even if the test scores were higher, it is a bad trade to abandon democracy for higher scores.
Newark, Néw Jersey, is the district that has openly aspired to copy the Néw Orleans model. Mark Zuckerberg dropped $100 million into Newark, with the expectation that it would become a national model. The best description of the draining of the Zuckerberg bequest is Dale Russakoff’s story in The Néw Yorker.
Somehow, a large proportion of Zuckerberg’s donation could its way into the pockets of consultants. The “national model” is nowhere to be seen.
The recent election of Ras Baraka as mayor signaled a loud NO to plans to turn Newark into another Néw Orleans. The people of Newark are not prepared to give up democracy or to allow Cory Booker, Chris Christie and Cami Anderson to rule their schools without checks or balances.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
National control over public schools will never work. The government cannot even run itself, let alone the schools. “Race to the Bottom” is a disgrace. Local control of schools is the only thing that works. Local boards of education know and understand the needs of their students and their communities. Hopefully, the damage of “Race to the Bottom” will pass, and this is just a very, very ugly phase that education is passing through. Let’s all pray for that.
with ya.
Thanks Diane!
John Merrow, who does stories for education stories for PBS, has found evidence of improvement. He also agrees its a complicated story, and he agrees that many problems remain.
John Merrow fell head over heels in love with Michelle Rhee and even today he has trouble seeing her for the snake oil salesperson she is and seeing “reform” for the bill of good it is.
Merrow has written very negative things about Rhee. You can look on his blog, learning matters about this.
He has also written negative comments about Diane and you agreed:
Do We Need More Heroes?
by JOHN MERROW on 25. SEP, 2013 in 2013 BLOGS
http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6556
Joe Nathan 25. Sep, 2013 at 5:04 pm
Well done, John.
I thought the “national model” is at work in Newark: destroy the public schools and turn their assets over to the edu-privateers…
The reform movement is unwinding because it is not educationally sound. However, unless you believe in the test, it cannot be an indicator of a failed or successful system. we lose credibility when we say test are rotten to the core, but use them when they fit our needs.
Await my new book Brainstorming the Common Core: Salvaging the Fiasco of reform. This will show solutions
I don’t think you can look at New Orleans without looking at funding. I count 42 million in federal subsidies for charter school support between 2005 and 2009, just from news accounts.
Then there’s the private funding, and I have no idea how much was poured in there.
If you wanted a real comparison between charter schools and the public school system that existed in New Orleans, you’d have had to pump all that money into the existing school system after the hurricane and see if you got test score gains. Of course, that analysis will never happen, because a decision was made to fund and promote charter schools over public schools.
I really can’t think of a worse example for a comparison between public schools and charter schools, especially if they plan to export it, which they do. This “experiment” is rigged. There was absolutely no way for public schools to “win”, because no one will ever know what would have happened if all that attention and money had been poured into those existing schools. Would there have been comparable score gains? I don’t know.
There are two sides to ed reform, and they work in tandem. There is the promotion of charters and the abandonment of existing public schools. Ignoring the public school side, what happens (or doesn’t happen) on the public side when the charter side is changing is just not valid to me.
All this tells me is if we focus like a laser on “schools” (in this case, charter schools) and pour in resources and attention, there will be score gains- I recognize the gains are in dispute, but even if I assume gains. That should surprise absolutely no one. In fact, it’s the public school advocates’ argument.
If there are any testing gains in charter schools, it is because they do not accept all of the students we have to teach in the public schools. Students are handpicked. Well, you don’t have to be a genius to know if you could handpick your students, your scores will go up. The misfits of the public school system drag down the testing results of the public schools. Now, in this ridiculous reform movement, teachers have to take responsibility in their teaching evaluations for bad genetics and poor home environments. It’s all crazy.
This is where we’re headed. A straight-up voucher system. Victory for ed reformers!
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/education/2014/06/08/proposed-fund-give-parents-school-cash/10212735/
It doesn’t matter that the reformers claims are falling apart. Since Reagan and probably before, facts have never interfered with beliefs.
Is there somewhere, some place that charters have to be accountable to the public when using public money. What exactly is their curriculum, how many teachers are certified, if not, what is their background, how much do they get paid, how much are the CEO’s paid, is staff allowed to unionize, what’s the ratio of pupil expense or the per pupil cost compared to administrative costs. In other words, to whom do they answer?
Sharsand2013 Every charter is accountable to their authorizer, as specified in state laws. State charter laws vary. Depending on the state, authorizers may be local school districts, colleges & universities, intermediate school districts, the state dept of education, a state charter board or an approved non-profit organization.
Each charter is supposed to have a contract specifying what it is to achieve in order to have its contract renewed.
There is no single curriculum, pay structure or governance system that describes all of the more than 2,000 charter public schools around the country.
You can get more info about how this at the website of the National Association for Charter School Authorizers, http://www.publiccharters.org