In this post, Mercedes Schneider tries to untangle the mess created by lack of oversight in all-charter New Orleans.
She begins:
In all-charter New Orleans, New Beginnings Schools Foundation (NBSF) operates three charter schools in New Orleans, one of which is John F. Kennedy High School.
Kennedy is in the throes of an astounding fraud which resulted in almost 50 percent of its Class of 2019 being found to not have actually met state requirements for graduation. As a result, 87 out of 177 students who were allowed to participate in a graduation ceremony and who thought that they would receive diplomas discovered that they would not be receiving diplomas after all. In an effort to mop up this mess, the NBSF board offered post-haste summer school as an option that 53 of the affected seniors participated in. Mind you, this last-minute, thrown-together clean up effort put students who had been offered scholarships at a critical disadvantage because official, complete, state-approved high school transcripts were not available in May 2019, when the students supposedly/legitimately graduated.
It is now August 2019; college/universty fall classes will soon begin, and the Kennedy seniors who participated in the alleged summer-school fixer still have not received copies of their transcripts. (For the extensive backstory and continuing saga, see here and here and here and here and here and here.)
On August 06, 2019, Nola.com reported on Kennedy student and parent efforts to require release of student transcripts via court order.
What is of particular importance in this all-charter arrangement is the fact that the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) (ironically renamed NOLA Public Schools) has no direct authority over those “public” schools to require the schools to release the transcripts. In this “portfolio model,” the school board is left out of any authority over ensuring school data integrity; the charter school deals directly with the state in delivering data, which is part of the problem since the state apparently had no controls in place to audit charter school grading practices.
The district was left out of Kennedy’s grading processes until a whistleblower brought the fraud to district attention, and then the district requested a state audit of all charter high school grading practices.
What comes through loud and clear is that any accountability depends of whistleblowers. The data mean nothing because they are generated by charter schools that are trying to create impressive records, even though fraudulent.
The only source of accountability is whistleblowers? Doesn’t the state have Kira Orange-Jones with the perfect meeting attendance record on the state board….wait…
Untangling fraud will get worse. I just returned from NOLA where I began my career 50 years ago in 1969. Without going into detail I’ll say it’s a mess, and moving to Atlanta next. I learned through (inside) authentication that the district will have a shortfall of teachers in this next year – up to 700 who have “disappeared” moved on to new lives. This massive experiment will prove to be a disaster in my opinion. There will be some successes, but, for the majority of students (Such those at Kennedy H.S) it’ll only get worse. The mess will move to Atlanta in that the “testing scandal” was nothing but a fraudulent attempt to create in Atlanta what Hurricane Katrina created in NOLA. Watch: http://www.onechildleftbehindmovie.com.
Thanks for the link.
Americans of all races should have protested in the streets when the Atlanta teachers were charged. And, we should not have backed down until the billionaire-funded testing regime was toppled in all of the nations’ cities and states.
Gates funds SETDA, an association of public employees who promote digital education and public-private partnerships. The association representing all 50 states has “Gold, Silver, Event and Strategic” private partners. It is the type of situation that makes oligarchy rain down destroying Main Street.
So good to hear you say that Americans should have protested the charging of the Atlanta teachers. Most of us are so taken up by our own little problems that we fail to see how something over there might affect us and spread.
Hopefully that might change.
One of the goals of this blog is to disseminate knowledge about what is happening in many cities and to understand the nature of the privatization movement
The Atlanta School Board was captured by TFA. Its leaders are using their power to gut public education.
Waiting to be informed- how many TFA’ers are on staff at the Green Dot school funded by Bill and Melinda Gates that is the subject of a lawsuit.
The mother of the boy assaulted at the school relied on her attorney to describe the family’s view, “The staff did everything wrong, every step of the way and showed callous disregard for the 12 year old student’s life and well being.”
These kids just want to start college this month, but may never be able to do so, because of this transcript fiasco. These charter school operators — who otherwise insist that they’re running “public schools” — are actually contradicting themselves in court, and pulling out the “We’re private” Card to justify denying these same (their recent former) students their transcripts, as in…
“We’re private, so no one — not the students’, the students’ parents, the authorizing/overseeing school district, any court or judge — has the right or power to force us to provide transcripts or to do ANYTHING, not now, not EVER, and if you don’t like that, TOO BAD!”
Just as with other private entities such as Walmart or whatever, they now claim that they have no obligation to provide these “customer-students” with anything, if that’s what these charter operators choose to do, or not to.
Yep, that’s the “New Orleans Miracle” so celebrated by Jeanne Allen, The74, Education Post, and all the rest.
John Oliver needs to do a sequel to this:
Given the recent news coming out of Ohio — which Oliver cites as maybe the worst state when it comes to charter schools — this video is more applicable than ever.
Indeed, Oliver’s video includes;
1) Ohio governor Kasich’s “pizza shops” as competition analogy,:
2) a charter operator, citing the Bible to justify her embezzling ed. funds to live a luxurious lifestyle, because … the Bible says that she will experience the good life first, and then — per some vague Bible quote which she blathers — she can then transfer those* “good life”* experiences to the children at the charter school.
What duh fun?
“Bible and charter schools” – The founder of Pahara where the L.A. Archdiocese of Catholic Schools’ superintendent is a Fellow, said the goal of charters was “…brands on a large scale”. Pahara’s founder made the declaration from her role as New Schools Venture Fund’s founder.
The Pahara Fellow list for Summer 2018 has the name of the Asst. Superintendent for Talent for the Louisiana Dept. of Ed. The Gates-funded operation, Pahara, was founded by Kim Smith, who claims she founded or co-founded TFA, New Schools Venture Fund and Bellwether. In an interview in Philanthropy Roundtable, Smith identified the goal of charters, “…brands on a large scale”.
Louisiana’s Pahara Fellow listed is Hannah Dietsch.
Also in that summer cohort, a Senior Research Fellow from the Charles Koch Institute. Bill Gates is Charles Koch’s ideological twin.
Also, in that summer cohort, from the Catholic Schools Archdiocese of L.A. , the Senior Director and Superintendent, Kevin Baxter.
It has been reported that Bill Gates met with Jeffrey Epstein to discuss philanthropy. Gates rode on Epstein’s airplane.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/14/jeffrey-epstein-met-with-bill-gates-years-after-financier-served-jail-time.html
Why does Bill meet with a convicted pedophile but refuses to meet with me? I could discuss philanthropy.
IF America lived up to the ideals that so many sacrificed so much for, a headline would read, “Legislators, judges, governors, public servants media, and colleges refuse to meet with and take money from Bill Gates and Charles Koch – both of whom are covered in the blood of the innocent, common good.”
Gates refuses to participate in democracy. Perhaps the news worthy item is, activists condemn despots in protest over their theft of democracy and refuse to meet with them.
I’m living here in New Orleans with my kid in the system, trying to advocate for all kids in the system. Electing a good state Board of Education Rep might go a long way (current rep Kira Orange Jones is tool of billionaire ed reformers)…you can help with that here: https://electdrwyatt.com/?fbclid=IwAR13r1OoXRyqCaSzxYKLrTRcPUiUy5lDejmsaSTppxxhk6OS3cPeh8l8vEA