For the education reformers of our day, Hurricane Katrina created an opportunity for disruption and privatization.
A chance to get rid of public education.
A chance to get rid of the union.
A chance to fire all the teachers, most of whom were African Americans.
A chance for education reform.
Mike Klonsky remembers and puts it into context.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hah! Amateurs!
In Michigan disaster capitalists create their own disasters.
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New Orleans used Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to reinvent itself. In addition to closing schools, firing many African American teachers, and opening charters, the city has developed mostly upscale housing and no public housing. The policymakers made no attempt bring back poor minority former residents. The city refused to rebuild the main subsidized housing development and chose to not reopen Charity Hospital which had served poor residents for generations. Klonsky is correct about the racism that plagued the city long before Katrina. Now that policymakers can use disruption as an excuse to reinvent the community, they are choosing to ignore the needs of the poorest people.
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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Dobard claims that local control is “political” (meaning elections) and overriding local parents and teachers can be justified when it produces “quality schools.”
I have never understood the “political!” charge from education reformers. They have literally thousands of people who are paid to lobby. Arne Duncan was a political appointee. So is John King.
How in the heck are they not “political”? What does “political” mean to them? They somehow float above politics on a higher plane than mere mortals who traffic in icky, dirty “politics”? Some of these people have been in DC their entire careers- not only are they “political” they have no work experience in anything else.
Ohio once held a legislative hearing on “public schools” where 13 of the 15 people testifying were sent there by StudentsFirst and paid by StudentsFirst
That’s “political”. It is is EXACTLY as “political” as a teachers union rep testifying.
This claim of moral superiority is snobbery. It’s elitism. The idea that other people in the lobbying world are subject to capture and acting in self interest while ed reformers are immune comes from a belief they have that they’re superior. It can’t come from anywhere else.
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If you read ed reformers the snobbery is amusing. This is a piece on a new micro school in NYC.
Count how many times the prestigious college credentials of the founders are mentioned. This is what these people value above all else- saying “Stanford, Princeton and Harvard” is like a magic incantation that guarantees excellence. The credentials are used as a sort of code- this school will be fabulous because look at the credentials of the people who started it.
https://www.the74million.org/article/how-a-nyc-micro-school-is-rethinking-classrooms-and-tests-and-using-projects-to-inspire-learning
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“Cunningham, who also worked for the Department of Education during Obama’s first term and for former Education Secretary Arne Duncan when Duncan was CEO of Chicago public schools, took issue with characterizing education reform as “corporate education reform,” and underscored that communication plays a big role in driving misperceptions.
Indeed, the poll found that people thought school administrators could improve their schools’ standing with the public if they did a better job of communicating with parents and provided more opportunities for input – an oft-cited criticism of reform-minded state and city school superintendents.
“It’s really hard to look parents in the eye and tell them where their kids or schools are falling short,” Cunningham says. “You need a different kind of attitude that says, ‘I’m going to be truthful about what’s happening.’ That’s why driving reform is hard.”
I love this argument because they can’t lose and they can’t be wrong. If ed reform is popular it’s because ed reformers are right. if ed reform is unpopular it’s also because ed reformers are right, it’s just that people have been lied to and ed reformers both know The Truth and are telling The Truth and The Truth is “hard” for the dopes in the cheap seats to fathom.
There is no set of circumstances where they could be wrong. Popular = right and unpopular= right.
I still marvel at the fact that Arne Duncan believes he’s in a position to tell working class people “hard truths” about their children. Based on his years working at the Wal Mart? What the lower classes need is another stern scolding. Their kids are “falling short”. Of what? Quarterly profit expectations?
Good Lord. Do they teach that kind of arrogance at Harvard or is it just a coincidence that so many of them seem to have it? Is it learned or a requirement for admission? Someone should do a study.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-29/confusion-over-purpose-of-us-education-system?src=usn_tw
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“For example, the poll showed that the majority of the public, 68 percent, would prefer schools increase access to career, technical and skills-based classes as opposed to AP, honors or other advanced courses.”
I went to a vocational high school for the last two years of high school and I have a technical cert from a community college and one of my sons also went that route. I support this. However. I don’t trust people who have never done any of those things and would never consider doing anything of those things to decide whether 7th graders should be tracked to career/technical. It’s that simple. I don’t think they’re representative of the people who go this route so I don’t think they should make the decisions.
If they diversify their group and include people who have actually done these things- gotten a tech cert, worked in a skilled trade, then I’ll consider letting them run it 🙂
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usatoday.com, 6-2-12: “More than 7,000 New Orleans teachers and other school employees were wrongfully fired after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a judge ruled.”
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/06/judge-new-orleans-teachers-fired-illegally-after-katrina/1#.V8WJlWVBswQ
louisianaweekly.com, 1-21-14: “The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that approximately 7,000 teachers and school employees were wrongfully terminated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Teachers filed suit against the Orleans Parish School Board and the Louisiana Department of Education after they lost their jobs post-Katrina and then were not given first crack at new job opportunities that arose once schools began reopening. A bench verdict from Civil District Court Judge Ethel Simms Julien ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2012 and on Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal mostly confirmed the ruling. Certain deductions were made related to plaintiffs’ lost wages, but the overall result was a victory for the plaintiffs.” [snip] ““New Orleans had a corps of dedicated professionals who wanted nothing more than to teach children,” said Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. “The city had a handful of schools that could have been opened within weeks after Hur-ricane Katrina. They were kept shuttered, the state took over the schools, and all the teachers in the city were fired…This ruling paves the way for some semblance of justice for those educators.”
The ruling applies to all employees who had tenure on August 29, 2005. That list includes principals, teachers, paraprofessionals, office administrators, secretaries, social workers, and other support staff.”
http://www.louisianaweekly.com/fired-teachers-win-in-appeals-court/
What a travesty committed against the New Orleans teachers and other school employees. 2005 was the same year that Bush tried to privatize Social Security but mercifully that effort failed.
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