Mercedes Schneider, high school teacher in Louisiana with a doctorate in statistics and research methodology, has some lessons for New York Times’ columnist David Leonhardt about the sham of charter schools in New Orleans.
One way to look at the takeover: The charter schools with a white majority are rated A or B. The charter schools that are almost completely black are rated D or F.
Another way to describe this: Separate and unequal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I was impressed with the knowledge that Jennifer Gardner has about the effects of poverty on children. How great it would be if our politicians had suffered and learned. Instead we get those who look down upon those who are poor, thinking they deserve the nothing that they have because if they were ambitious they would achieve more. These wealthy people don’t have a clue about what it means to grow up in poverty. Where is the US in putting money into programs that are proven to help? It doesn’t exist. [Much better to put more money into war, charters and vouchers.] There is no profit in high-quality early childhood development for disadvantaged children.
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— Nick Kristof, NYT
I’m away on book leave, but a few people are helping to keep this newsletter busy in my absence. Today’s author is Jennifer Garner, actress and activist on behalf of children. I met Jen years ago while filming the documentary “A Path Appears” and was deeply impressed by her passion for early childhood interventions and her smart advocacy for
Save the Children.
By Jennifer Garner
Not everyone knows that I grew up one generation and one holler removed from poverty.
My mom grew up dirt poor with a passel of siblings and no electricity or running water in Dustbowl Depression Oklahoma. She managed somehow to get herself educated — the only member of her family to go to college. Eventually, Mom and Dad landed with my sisters and me in Charleston, W. Va., where we grew up middle-class surrounded by generational rural poverty. The kind where kids’ shoes are cut along the front to let their toes grow.
These kids are up against enormous odds, and they’re not all as lucky as my mom ended up. But what I have observed is that sometimes the smallest piece of the puzzle is what changes the whole enterprise.
Through my work with Save the Children over the past 10 years, I have had the great privilege of visiting families from Alligator, Miss., to Quinault Indian Nation in Washington State. I want to give you an idea of what these homes look like so that you can really understand what kids living in rural poverty are up against.
Imagine living in a home devoid of books and toys, where the only source of heat is an open oven door, where pipes freeze with each cold snap. Mobile homes are particularly susceptible to roach infestation. Children become numb to roaches crawling over their legs. Walls are empty. There is no happy sound of a toddler babbling.
Add in other risk factors such as food insecurity, drug abuse, neglect and even a lack of diapers, and that baby’s brain stops growing, stops multiplying neurons and setting itself up to learn. If 90 percent of brain growth happens in the first five years, there’s very little we can do to make up for it.
But home visits can change all that by helping expectant parents prepare for the arrival of their baby, and then teaching them to read, talk and sing to their baby — activities that build bonds and ensure healthy development. That bond between Mom, Dad and baby is critically important — and so is the bond with home visitors, especially in the rural communities. Kids’ eyes light up when they see their visitor — books and toys in tow.
According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, the rate of return on investments in high-quality early childhood development for disadvantaged children can be 13 percent per child, per year, because of improved outcomes in education, health, sociability and economic productivity.
Children don’t vote. They don’t make political contributions. That’s why it’s so important that those of us who have a voice speak up for them and support programs like Early Head Start and Head Start, and Save the Children’s home visitation model.
Just like my mom, these kids all have potential — to go to college, to escape the cycle of poverty and to provide the opportunity that my sisters and I were so fortunate to receive. What could be a better investment than that?
“the rate of return on investments in high-quality early childhood development for disadvantaged children can be 13 percent per child, per year,”
Smells like horse manure, tastes like snake oil and feels like the slimy goo of economic supposed thinking.
I have some great white sand ocean front beach property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri for sale cheaply. Operators standing by! Call now! 555-555-5555.
Duane: Even if the return isn’t measured in any way the investment in good early childhood programs has proven to help children achieve. It sure beats putting children in overstuffed classrooms with students sitting on the floor because of lack of desks.
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Research finds early childhood program linked to degree completion at age 35: 30-year follow-up study of Chicago graduates shows increased postsecondary attainment
Participating in an intensive early childhood education program from preschool to third grade is linked to higher educational attainment in mid-life, according to a new study by University of Minnesota researchers.
The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, tracked the progress of more than 1,500 children from low-income neighborhoods in Chicago, from the time they entered preschool in 1983 and 1984 in Child-Parent Centers (CPC) until roughly 30 years later. The children were part of the Chicago Longitudinal Study, one of the longest-running follow-ups of early childhood intervention…
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180130123717.htm
Probably the key component of that program is this:
“The program provides small classes, intensive learning experiences, menu-based parent involvement, and professional development. The children’s parents received job skills training, parenting skills training, educational classes and social services. They also volunteered in their children’s classrooms, assisted with field trips, and attended parenting support groups.”
Involved parents!
And yes, this country has more than enough wealth and resources to provide that sort of training for the adults along with small class size with the proper number of certified/qualified staff.
Just another ignorant, angry old man, who doesn’t have anything to say, other than, “I don’t believe this!: No proof. No input. Just old-man anger because he doesn’t understand something beyond someone needs help instead of him…
I challenge you to discuss/debate any topic whatsoever dealing with the teaching and learning process. So bring it on! What do you have to offer against what I have said other than an ad hominem attack?
Oh, and by the way if your going to ad hominem attack me and my being at least get it right “Ignorant angry white privileged old man”. . .
. . . whose ignorance you will never have a chance to catch up to/with.
Why do I deal with such foul fools?
I certainly hope David Leonhardt will read what the expert on what happened in New Orleans says. She is Mercedes Schneider, and she had the article the New York Times and Washington Post should have published to stop the nonsense about some “miracle” in New Orleans.
If only she had the money to counter their p.r. machines.
The New Orleans Recovery District is an example of “portfolio models,” converting schools districts to charters – a avery dangerous and growing trend.
https://mets2006.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-new-orleans-recovery-school-district-portfolio-models-versus-innovation-within-the-public-schools-right-here-in-the-big-apple/
The miracle of New Orleans is in over a million dollars of fraud in a four year period. Must be great to pay all that money to outside, independent operators, only to have them give away a million dollars of it to their friends. And competing for funding instead of having a democratic voice in ones own community must be real miraculous too. Segregated, undemocratic, fraud committing schools — a miracle! Moses would be so proud.
Privatization feeds on opportunism, whether it’s a natural disaster, a state takeover, or the mass closing of black majority schools. Privatization exploits the weaknesses of under funding, poverty and chaos. The goal is the same. They seek to disempower the local community, and turn decisions over to some politician or political body with the goal of privatizing. New Orleans is a perfect example of a “portfolio” district in which outsiders profit from the education of the young people. This is no “miracle;” it’s mass privatization.
The bottom line is that there would be no difference between charter schools and public schools given the same make up of student body.
This is why the portfolio districts fail. They cannot change the students, and they are bringing in a raft of inexperienced, mostly untrained so-called teachers that do not a magic wands to make all the false assumptions of “reform” come true so they try to spin failure.
Exactly right.