Remember that Arne Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans” because it made it possible to wipe out public schools, fire all the teachers, eliminate the union, and replace them all with charter school?
Well, the Secretary of Education Julia Kelleher in Puerto Rico is grateful for the opportunity that Hurricane Maria has given her to do the same to the public schools there.
Forget the deaths of at least 4,000 people. Think of charter schools and vouchers!
Here she is in an interview.
She’s in the middle of closing 264 schools and working with Betsy Devos on vouchers.
Video of her here: https://twitter.com/GoHedgeClippers/status/1024336534965825536
Full text from full video: https://www.facebook.com/David-Begnaud-108679513654/
David Begnaud 24:07
And I’ll preface the question with this. When I first met Miss Keleher, her at the convention center we were sitting off in a cornerdidn’t actually know who she was, until about 10 minutes before I found out and I thought, Oh, well, she’d be a good person to talk to how are the schools to doing and this was in like, the first few days after the storm. And we sat down and you said to me, I’ll never forget “hurricane Maria Maybe the best thing that’s happened to this island” Do you still feel that way
Julia Keleher 24:37
I think the fact that I have $500 million to improve the quality of a kids academic experience and learning environment, I think that I have four times as much money as I would have to be able to fix the physical plant in which they go to school plus, plus the option to access more, I think that’s a tremendous opportunity that no one wanted the storm, but I’m I’m not going to miss spend, pardon the pun, the the opportunity that I have to, to to redirect these things that would have never been available to Puerto Rico, I would have been short $300 million, I wouldn’t be able to do the things that we’re going to be able to do for teachers and for kids.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What a horrible person!!! How many of these children have suffered..lost their homes, a parent or a friend in this disaster that wasn’t given proper attention by Trump? These kids have seen horrors that most of us wouldn’t see except in a thriller movie. Anyone who can look at this natural disaster and say it is the best thing to happen to Puerto Rico should have NO power. She has no compassion and certainly doesn’t know anything about education.
These kids have been traumatized by this disaster and most of them are extremely poor.
I believe there are parts of Puerto Rico that still don’t have power. How are these people going to support themselves since robber corporations are leaving the country which has a mountain of debt. Banks took advantage of Puerto Rico to make good money. Now they all leave.
This is the same type of vulture capitalism that gobbled up the New Orleans schools. It is disaster opportunism designed to catch people when they have suffered that will be less likely to resist capitalism’s invading reach. It is the same colonialist mentality that has been applied to communities of color in the US which implies that black and brown people cannot determine their own fate so let’s monetize them. At least the rich will benefit from the creation of these separate and unequal schools.
By the way, even though many Puerto Ricans have moved to Florida, the state has not had large numbers of Puerto Ricans register to vote.
“Remember that Arne Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans” ”
No. Don’t remember anything very close to that. Closest I can find:
“This is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest. I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. The education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that ‘we have to do better.'”
https://archive.org/details/CNN_20100201_220000_The_Situation_Room_With_Wolf_Blitzer/start/2700/end/2760
Actually, Arne said that infamous statement in an interview with pro-charter TV host Roland Martin, here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012903259.html
Leaving aside, as we should not, the lives lost in the hurricane, the question remains:
Are the poor kids of New Orleans really better off? The white kids certainly are.
40% of the schools in the Recovery School District are rated D or F by the state. These schools are highly segregated. The average graduate of New Orleans RSD charters has an ACT score too low to qualify for admission to a university in Louisiana.
I’m not familiar with the state rating system or how much one should rely on it. But it certainly seems plausible that there remains plenty of room for improvement.
John White, ex-TFA and Broadie, is in charge of the state accountability system.
YES. And their veteran teachers—-we must never forget what happened to them
Stephen,
Perhaps Duncan said it more than once. Here he is on the Roland Martin show. Martin speaks at charter conferences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012903259.html
Are the students in New Orleans better off? Nearly a third of them left and never returned. Enrollment pre-Katrina was 65,000, now about 45,000. Forty percent of the charters in the privatized Recovery School,District are graded D or F by the state (ie, failing schools). All the D or F schools are segregated black. If you like separate but equal, you will love the new New Orleans.
We’re both referencing the single occasion when he said what I cited above. As James Carville reacted: “First of all, he’s a terrific education secretary and terrific friend of the schools and school children in New Orleans… If I were him I would have said it slightly different….”
“If you like separate but equal, you will love the new New Orleans.”
I can imagine preferring separate but equal to separate and unequal without liking either. But am not sure either of us would really consider the current circumstance equal…
“New Orleans schools were highly segregated prior to the city’s school reforms, especially in terms of race and income, and remain segregated now.
“We found little evidence that the New Orleans school reforms affected segregation for elementary school students. Most groups of high school students that we examined were affected, with some groups seeing an increase in segregation and others a decrease.
“There were no consistent trends in racial segregation. Some groups became more segregated, others less so.
“Among high school students, segregation has increased for low-income students and English Language Learners, but decreased for special education students as well as by achievement.”
https://educationresearchalliancenola.org/publications/did-the-new-orleans-school-reforms-increase-segregation
As Linda Darling-Hammond said in her dissent to the Klein-Rice brief recommending the Common Core, vouchers, and charters, New Orleans is the lowest-scoring City in the lowest-scoring State. Whatever gains have been made have not reduced the achievement gap or segregation. Big deal. Hurricane Katrina caused the deaths of 1,833 people. If that’s what it takes to raise retest scores, the price is too high.
“Remember that Arne Duncan said that Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that ever happened to New Orleans” because it made it possible to wipe out public schools, fire all the teachers, eliminate the union, and replace them all with charter school?
Well, the Secretary of Education Julia Kelleher in Puerto Rico is grateful for the opportunity that Hurricane Maria has given her to do the same to the public schools there.”
That’s the echo chamber effect in ed reform. They all sound the same because they all ARE the same. Often they are the same people. The cadre of ed reformers who rushed in and engineered Puerto Rico are probably in some cases literally the same people who promoted the dogma in the Trump or Obama Administration.
We see these things again and again because there’s only one dominant voice at the elite levels and it’s ed reformers.
This is self-selecting. Only ed reformers are hired and promoted so only ed reformers are heard from. She wouldn’t have the job if she didn’t spout the dogma.
I don’t think one can get a job at the federal level in education without speaking this particular language. We think “wow- they all sound the same down to words and phrases” but that isn’t accidental. It’s baked into the employment process. No ed reform ideology = no job= never heard from.
“If that’s what it takes to raise retest scores, the price is too high.”
I am quite sure that Arne Duncan as well as James Carville would find agreement with you on that.
I hope so.
Hint for school privatizers: if your policy requires a natural disaster to get started, you’re not one of the good guys.
Amen!
This should be always be cited as a primary and particularly loathe-some example of Disaster Capitalism.
This to me is the best example of the echo chamber:
https://www.the74million.org/article/commentary-10-lessons-from-indianapolis-in-reforming-education-in-our-nations-cities/
Ed reformers are all pushing Indianapolis as a national model. They’re thrilled that +/- half the students attend charter schools.
The ONLY mention of the public school students in that city is to compare them unfavorably to charter schools.
Imagine having a kid in a public school when these people take over. They are telling public school families there won’t be any investment in their schools and that they are abandoning the public schools they disfavor. In Indianapolis that is almost HALF the students.
I don’t think they see it themselves. They are so far into this closed community of true believers that public school families are not even considered or on their radar. They literally do not matter enough to mention. Public schools and public school students are simply a control group in their experiment- useful as a comparison to charters and vouchers but not worth anything beyond that. Half the students and families in the city! It’s outrageous, but we’ve all gotten so used to our second class status it we just accept it. We don’t even expect politicians to support our schools anymore. We know they don’t and wont.
The Nation published an article with the wording, “colonialism and disaster capitalism” (the phrase should have been trademarked by Bill Gates). It discloses Julie Kelleher’s salary, 3 times the governor’s. The high pay is attributed to her paid position, as an advisor to her own agency. One interesting point in the article is the award of an almost $17 mil. contract to a California firm that specializing in teaching ethics to students. Learning about ethics is critical (sarcasm) when you have no power grid and your inclusionary schools are being closed.
Kelleher, based on the article, dismisses her critics with the usual right wing talking point, “If only I wasn’t White”… which is, apparently, illogically followed by, “the target would welcome my exploitation.”
Reform grifting is equal opportunity, except not for the schools of the wealthy’s children.
Every day I read this blog. Great blog. At this moment I am thinking that thousands of people in other countries are reading the same blog, the same information about how our schools are being taken over by privatization. I am positive they are wondering what kind of fools are people such as Secretary Kelleher. America is supposed to be one of the cradles for the development of outstanding education for all its people yet it appears that the cradle is tipping over with all its educational wisdom gain over all these many years being dumped into the trash drumster for the sake of the almighty profit. God help the people of Puerto Rico because DeVos and Helleher have shown they will not.
Heartless and maybe brainless. And, since visuals are so important–the festive garden party look while discussing a horrible disaster just doesn’t work, honey.
SO . . . VERY . . . ANGRY!