Andrea Gabor wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times questioning the “New Orleans Miracle,” and she was immediately pummeled and vilified by defenders of charters. She responded to the critics in a piece on this blog. She has now posted a longer response on her own blog, which appears here.
Be sure to read the long and moving statement by Howard Fuller, one of the most prominent African American voices in favor of corporate reforms (charters and vouchers). Here is part of it:
“I do believe things are better for a large number of kids than before Katrina. But I don’t want to be put in the position of saying: pre-Katrina was all bad, post-Katrina is all good. When we set it up that way, we’re negating anything that was positive before Katrina. What that tends to negate is the capacity of black people to do anything of excellence.
“The firing of those teachers is a wound that will never be closed, never be righted. I understand the issue of urgency. But a part of this quite frankly has to do with the fact that I do not believe that black people are respected. I don’t believe that our institutions are respected. And I don’t believe that our capacity to help our own people is respected…
“Its hard for me, because I do support the reforms and think there are some great things that have happened. I do have to ask the same question as Randi (Weingarten)—at what cost?
“Even if you talk to black people who drank the Kool-aide: The issue still is– this was done to us not with us. That feeling is deep. It can’t be ignored. It speaks to any type of long-term sustainability of what’s happening in New Orleans.
“When black people came out of slavery, we came out with a clear understanding of the connection between education and liberation. Two groups of white people descended upon us—the missionaries and the industrialists. They both had their view of what type of education we needed to make our new-born freedom realized. During this period there’s an analogy—I’ve said this to all my friends in Kipp And TFA. During this period two groups of white people descended on us the industrialists and the missionaries. And each one of them have their own view of what kind of education we need.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks Diane, for once again publishing Andrea Gabor’s valuable research. This new article is well documented and makes many points that apply not only to New Orleans, but to districts nationwide.
See EdSource today to read about California, and how the testing data of the past 15 years was recently scrubbed, and the State Superintendent’s office notified educators and the public, that past data is no longer valid for comparison with CC testing results. Erase history and you erase factual memory. Outrageous.
Thanks Andrea…and I hope you will have a chapter in your book on California and our politics of education.
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While it is difficult to judge the outcomes in the lives of students in New Orleans, there are several aspects that need consideration. The population of the city is not the same. I know for a fact that at least 100,000 of the poorest evacuees have remained Houston, and others remain scattered in other cities. The city as a whole has gentrified with the exception of the lower 9th where improvements are spotty, except for Brad Pitt’s development to which he has just added more homes. There has been great resistance to rebuilding the low income housing, which ten years later is still under debate. I can guarantee the hesitation has to do with the price of real estate. I can also say with certainty that life is not as good or secure for all the African American women that were fired when they sold off the schools, and the schools are still not significantly better. Is this really progress?
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And the union – in not defending those teachers to the fullest -really screwed up. What a disgrace! They better be ready with this latest SCOTUS case or else Randi and others with their 6 figure salary and expense accounts can kiss it goodbye and spend their remaining time on the planet explaining what went wrong and how they played NO part in the demise of the labor movement in the United States. Just a thought.
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They’re doing the same thing in Youngstown, Ohio.
“State Superintendent Richard Ross wasn’t just quiet about the surprise plan for state control of the Youngstown schools – he had his staff draft it while telling others to keep it secret.
Ross came under fire from some state school board members in July for never informing the board that plans were in the works to overhaul how the state will handle the Youngstown school district and others with failing grades on state report cards.
Those new plans were introduced in the state legislature on June 24 and passed through both houses in the same day, with no opportunity for the public or even Youngstown’s mayor and school board to comment.”
The group that wrote the plan called themselves “the cabinet” (really) but now no one can determine who is actually responsible for drafting it. It’s amazing. These people literally had their public schools seized over two days in June, with no notice and no input from them, at all.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/08/state_superintendent_had_staff_write_confidential_youngstown_plan.html
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All these drastic upheavals with nary a say or holler from teachers unions. It looks as if they have been co opted as has our Democratic law makers. Everyone seems to have jumped on the deform train to public school destruction.
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Let’s call the Youngstown plan anti-American….no public engagement sought or wanted, just shove the plan through.
The legislature has already hardwired criteria for performance that cannot be met even is there was nothing but test prep for tests in schools. All metro area schools will become Youngstown–from Cleveland City Schools, to Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati where the concept of community schools with wraparound services has been in place in many schools for years, along with versions of magnet schools. Incremental progress over time will not satisfy the feds, state officials, and thralls of ALEC in the Ohio legislature.
The schools left standing in the high-needs metro areas of this state have been stripped of professionalism and citizen engagement. The reason? At least in part, nearly two decades of policies based on the idea that you can achieve “breakthrough results” with 100% proficiencies if you just–keep a relentless focus on test scores, tweak the formulas for weighting these scores in rating schemes, hire outside consultants and no small number of hucksters to do dog and pony shows for teacher improvement.
These are junk policies and practices that set students and schools up for failure. By design, these policies enlarge the market for alternatives,along with a serious divestment in public schools, and their takeover, effectively making them private operations free of pesky processes like having democratic governance.
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Thank you Dr. Ravitch for posting Professor A. Gabor’s link.
I love to repeat her written expression which reminds me, my mother’s wisdom in life.
[start quote]
“What people have NEVER GRASPED is that we want to be helped, we DON’T WANT TO BE CONTROLLED. In this process, we wanted to be a critical part of defining what role education should play in our continuing STRUGGLE TO truly REALIZE FREEDOM in America. That’s the thing that’s truly unsettled in my soul. How do I make that happen, when I AM SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS ON THE LEFT and ON THE RIGHT? And I’m trying to find an independent course that speaks to THE PAIN that my people EXPERIENCE EVERY SINGLE DAY.”
[end quote]
My mother always said that it is easy to be evils and be eaten/bullied by evils, but it would take a lot of courage, perseverance, and logical mind to stay away from evils in order to do good deeds.
In short, this is the only reason that I faithfully and trustingly follow Dr. Ravitch and her educational gurus/veterans/practitioners in her website. May King
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Sound like the lovely Ms. Gabor touched a nerve. Good. Keep poking.
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The public really needs to have this information as the hoax of the New Orleans “miracle” threatens to go nationwide. Thanks to the New York Times for publishing this Op/Ed. It’s good to see our major newspapers sponsoring some real investigative reporting again.
More than anything, American education needs the truth.
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