New Orleans is supposed to be the lodestar of the Corporate Reform Movement (or as I call it, the Disruption Movement), but the experiment in privatization is a costly failure, as Tom Ultican demonstrates in this post.
The old, underfunded school system was corrupt and inefficient. The new one is expensive, inefficient, and ethically corrupt because of its incessant boasting about what are actually very poor results.
Comparisons between the old and new “systems” are dubious at best because Hurricane Katrina dramatically reduced the enrollment from 62,000 to 48,000. As Bruce Baker pointed out in reviewing a recent puff study, concentrated poverty was significantly reduced by the exodus of some of the city’s poorest residents, who resettled elsewhere.
Ultican cites Andrea Gabor’s studies of the New Orleans schools to show that the lingering heritage of segregation and disenfranchisement has been preserved in the new all-charter system. The schools that enroll the most white students have selective admissions and high test scores. The majority of schools are highly segregated and have very low test scores.
Be sure to open this link and scroll down to “Individual School Performance,” where you will see that the majority of charter schools in BOLA perform well below the state average.
Do not look to New Orleans for lessons about school reform. But do admire it as a shining example of propaganda and spin paid for by Bill Gates and other billionaires who don’t like public education, democracy, or local school boards.
Too bad professional orgs have conferences in places like New Orleans.
New Orleans and the profiteers took all of the efficiency and accountability out of public education in the city. Public schools represent “economies of scale.” Today the city is a patchwork of private charters that are so disorganized they do not even have accurate records. They cast aside their black teachers and hired mostly white associates. In doing so they destroyed jobs for a black middle class in the city.
Thanks to Obama, Duncan and the crooked politicians in the state and city, New Orleans no longer offers public education in the city. More than a third of all the original private charters have bit the dust. New Orleans finally realizes that their black teachers were the backbone of their system. They have a $13 million dollar grant to recruit teachers, probably because no one is his right mind wants to work there. Of course, they want to train the teachers in the practice of colonialism before they are hired. https://www.nola.com/news/education/article_76dd8c1f-33d6-5f39-8c9a-504d6e9fb9e3.html
Backers of the Manhattan Institute and Fordham drive privatization in general and church schools in particular. An endorsement for Catholic schools from the Manhattan Institute, was made specific to New Orleans.
Protecting unmerited privilege is behind the Bible thumping. Religion, above Constitutional law, is the strategy because Biblical teachings can be spun to keep the richest people in power and women and workers controlled.
This year, Frederick Hess of AEI wrote, “60 years ago university history departments were dominated by military history and great men…The situation has utterly flipped (to) scholars of social movements, race or gender.” Four out of 5 (80%) of the staff in AEI education policy, including Hess, in the photo array appear to be white, as is the lone woman. Harvard privilege is apparent in the bio’s., and links to Manhattan Institute, Walton Foundation, and the Data Quality Campaign.
Hess claims conservative scholars face intense discrimination. Where is his criticism of the Koch’s money influence at George Mason University? Why does he have blinders about Roland Fryer and Raj Chetty? Where is AEI’s criticism of the conservative power of ALEC or, of the Federalist Society?
In the article that Hess wrote for National Affairs, he quoted the religious right’s favorite professor, who will be receiving the Catholic Information Center’s (D.C.) award, named not, after Pope Francis but instead, the prosperity Catholic’s John Paul II.
George is infamous for citing the view that contraceptives are linked to promiscuity.
The entitled have plotted to use religion to protect their power from being marginalized, by people who have expectations of meritocracy instead of privilege. The plot began 40 years ago with Paul Weyrich (the founder of the religious right and ALEC) and, with the Federalist Society which positions conservative judges for the court.
we often forget that what we are experiencing did not suddenly happen: the strategies are deep and intentional
The wealthy of the right wing are in two ways distinguishable from the Taliban. First, their weapons destroy without directly drawing blood and secondly, their excessive financial greed separates them from the religious zealots of the Middle East..
The right wing demands that education focuses exclusively on college/career readiness.
Tangentially, the right wing has proposed a narrowing and a limitation on job qualifications – specifically, the degree qualification. With usual libertarian hypocrisy, the attack calls for legislation, court decree and/or policy to prohibit college degrees as a requirement for jobs.
Rick Hess (AEI) uses the assigned PR words, “degree inflation”, for the story line in National Affairs, Fall 2019, “Busting the College-Industrial Complex”. And, as always, the packaging disguises the goal – enthroning a ruling class. The cover argument pretends the proposals advance the middle class and poor.
Hess claims the initiative is bi-partisan. So, who are the DINO’s? – my speculation- CAP and BPC’s DINO’s. For the American aristocracy, future national prosperity is irrelevant. If any activity furthers American democracy, encourages pay commensurate with GDP contribution or erodes control by the richest 0.1%, it’s particularly noxious. And, they are loathe to pay for any education except their own kids’.
More possible speculation about the DINO’s purported to support Hess and J Grant Addison’s proposal. Addison is with the Washington Examiner (Philip Anshutz’ publication). DINO and DFER, Michael Bennett is an associate of Anschutz.
Washington Examiner photo array of staff, 70+ pictures- appears to have one lone black person.
Anschutz is a billionaire who funded Waiting for Superman and anti-gay referenda. Evangelical.
In searching, I found that Frank Schaeffer made the Catholic- evangelical connection in an article, “On the Brink of Theocracy”, 12-1-2017. (Schaeffer’s points did not include education as an issue.)
Anschutz and Gorsuch have ties.
Both from Colorado. Both religious zealots.
Check.
Disaster capitalism at its finest, robbing the public in its hour of need. And one they have stolen, they never give back, not one bowl of gruel.