Ouch!
New Orleans is the nation’s first all-charter district.
New Orleans is supposed to be the shining star of the charter movement, proving the value of school choice and market-based reforms, closing schools and replacing them with new schools, then closing failing schools, ad infinitum.
Della Hasselle writes in the New Orleans Advocate:
The release of the state’s closely watched school performance scores earlier this month offered an overall update on New Orleans schools that seemed benign enough: A slight increase in overall student performance meant another C grade for the district.
But a closer look reveals a startling fact. A whopping 35 of the 72 schools in the all-charter district scored a D or F, meaning nearly half of local public schools were considered failing, or close to it, in the school year ending in 2019. Since then, six of the 35 have closed.
While New Orleans has long been home to struggling schools, the data released this month are concerning. There was an increase of nearly 11% percentage points in the number of schools that received the state’s lowest grades from the 2017-18 school year to 2018-19.
Someone, please let Betsy DeVos know.
Let Cory Booker and Democrats for Education Reform know.
Let Michael Bloomberg, Reed Hastings, Bill Gates, and Eli Broad know.
Let the Mind Trust and City Fund know.
Tell the Walton Foundation, which has poured over $1 billion into charter school proliferation.
Wow. Some model for the nation to follow!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Didn’t New Orleans get a huge infusion of new funding conditioned on closing all the public schools and firing all the teachers?
Despite ed reform denials, funding really matters for schools. Maybe they can’t move the needle because the increased funding was the main reason it moved in the first place.
Not that it matters. New Orleans is such a cherished ed reform talking point and they’ve exported the formula to so many cities they wouldn’t change any of their analysis without a crowbar.
It will forever be a success, no matter what happens. It has to be. Everything that came after rests on it being a success.
Have ed reformers changed their position on anything since the “movement” started? I can’t think of a single ed reform theory they have adjusted, even slightly. That all by itself seems to indicate it’s more of a belief system and less of an evidence-based system. Experiments are supposed to lead to learning and modifications, not dogged double downs.
NOLA is the uber-narrative of the Reform by Disruption Movement.
They have hung all their hopes on the success of NOLA.
The fact that 35/72 schools are failing or near-failing puts a pin in their balloon.
But you won’t hear them admit it.
“…failing schools could trigger another round of closures or takeovers.” NOLA doesn’t even try to hide ITS failed policy, “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”
BTW it’s noted these 50% D-F schools exclude special schools for struggling students (which teach to a different set of standards) – and… NOLA’s state-run schools! The first exclusion keeps scores from looking quite as bad as they actually are. As to the 2nd, did I miss something? If state takeover is a “remedy” for failure, surely their superior methods should be monitored, crowed about, & demonstrably pulling up the average! /s/
One official notes there are “new, tougher standards in place” which may be a factor in the increase in failing test scores. You can’t make this stuff up. Got too many kids failing tests? Raise the bar! Lewis says “Across the district, we are focused on doing a better job implementing high-quality curriculum and on ways to improve teacher quality and retention .” How do you attract high-quality teachers to a district whose policy is “the closures/ takeovers/ bar-raising will continue until scores improve”? Do you “retain” teachers w/a sword of Damocles threatening employee disruption and churn every 3-5 yrs?
A “closer look” at some of the D/F charters revealed many adopted new curricula, some got new leaders, others absorbed students relocated from elsewhere—per one cite, “We close their schools, scatter them, and have them up at 5a.m. to get them on the bus to another failing school.” All these factors are baked in to the district policy. Features, not bugs.
A former dep supt for the district is “wary of letting poor-performing schools stay open too long,” i.e. she doesn’t like the new ‘progress made’ formula that gives an F-scoring school more time to keep raising its scores [uh-oh, unless they move that bar up again]. Yup, closing those poor-performers at a faster clip will surely do the trick.
Housing prices have increased dramatically as more affluent families move to the city. The shifting demographics contribute to higher scores in some parts of the city while others may be declining more. With so many variables, it makes it difficult to know what is happening. It would be more interesting and telling to look at individual schools over time along with socio-economic levels in those schools.
NOLA currently has a problem retaining teachers, due to its heavy reliance on TFA and other newcomers.
Paying the price for firing all of the experienced teachers at the time of state takeover.
Considering the complete invalidity of and absurdity of using “school grades” for anything. . . . . . .
To try to understand New Orleans, one must accept that it is not an American city. A.J. Liebling, who chronicled Earl Long’s last political campaign in the late 1950s, wrote it was “the westernmost of the Arab states” because the tribal intrigue he saw had no American precedents. In that sense, it hasn’t changed much in the last 60 years. A 19th century sugar plantation mentality underlies its social structure; there is an upper class of old money with an expectation of privilege and real power and a web of racial, cultural, professional, and laboring underclasses that exist on a very different social and political plane. It is more of a Caribbean city, one in which elites can do as they please and visitors can come to have fun. They are like the tourists who go to all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic and are hermetically sealed off from any contact with real natives and their reality.
For the entrenched leaders, they have their own schools, elite private schools that rank among the best in the world—where teachers create their own classes, without high-stakes testing, and with incredibly well-rounded course and extracurricular offerings. There is also a very strong Catholic school network. For these people, public schools are for the “others,” the lower classes whose purpose is to exist to serve the elites. Even the natives who profit from and serve in leadership positions in the charter networks would never be caught dead having their kids attend those schools. So, whatever problems exist do not affect them, or so they convince themselves. There’s an old aphorism about the city: “The city that care forgot,” is as true today as it was the day it was founded. But it could just as easily be: “The city that forgot to care.”
Is all that still true post-Katrina?
Yes, perhaps more so. The city has fundamentally changed. It is more gentrified, younger (many of the post-Katrina “immigrants” are there for professional reasons and have no contact with or interest in the public school system) and, because of the “charterization”, parents who want to make change have been atomized (they don’t unify as a public school constituency, but are focused on the schools their children attend) and thus become even more disenfranchised. The elites still have their private and Catholic schools; it’s the status quo on steroids for them.
Interesting, thanks. I’d assumed that NOLA would be chock-full of publicly-supported Catholic schools, like some rust-belt cities, thanks to religious charters in Ohio and the large voucher program in Indiana. Looking at figures for NOLA, it appears instead that the massive charter conversion was something that happened to public schools only. There’s a small voucher program that may include Catholic schools, but only for 7k kids [34k attend private Catholic schools]. And a large contingent of other private schools [20k enrollment]. Tho Catholic school enrollment continues to decline (as pre-Katrina), & has suffered for the competition with charters, it seems more of a “shake-out,” w/many trad’lly strong ones holding their own—w/rising tuitions squeezing out onetime lower-midclass contingent. So NOLA still ends up w/more than ½ in private & Catholic schools – the “haves,” if anything more exclusive than they were pre-Katrina.
& here, in IL (esp. in Chicago), we continue to hear from–oftentimes solicited to speak by reporters (& he wrote a very “informed” Letter to the Ed. which was published in the part union-owned Chicago Sun-Times, which criticized–with so many faulty assumptions–the CTU strike*} and radio {& I’m talking progressive talk radio!})–education & political “expert” Paul Vallas, who, in fact, has the audacity to broadcast himself as head of the N.O.L.A., Philadelphia & Bridgeport, CT school systems (did he ever even serve one day as head of Bridgeport schools before a judge ruled him to be unqualified for the position?). Oh, & in his critical letter, of course he mentioned that he’d been the CEO of CPS, because he totally understands the CPS of today
Since it appears he is unemployed at the moment, perhaps you can ask him to come back to N.O.& fix what he broke.
Or, better yet, he could go down to Florida, switch back to his true Republican roots, & work w/Jeb Bush & the charter $chool$.
Please, can you just leave us alone in IL? It’s bad enough we have Arne.
*Word has it that Vallas is “angling” for a job in Mayor Lightfoot’s administration (& one of the conservative paper’s columnists is pushing for her to do so, just as he pushed Vallas to run for Chicago mayor.
Oh, what I also meant to say was: but don’t let Paul Vallas know.
Not, of course, that you’d have him!
And they will continue because that’s what the politicians want. Although I strongly appreciate those who point out the wrongs of charters, no one seems to offer something better.
I WILL BE BLUNT. OVER A DECADE OF WHINNING HAS GOTTEN US NOWHERE! IT IS TIME TO OFFER WHAT THE PUBLIC SECTOR CAN DO IF GIVEN THE CHANCE!
“…no one seems to offer something better”????????? Do you mean something new like “reinvent” or “innovate”?
Have you read any of Diane’s books? Pasi Sahlberg? Andy Hargrove? Mercedes Schneider? Stephen Singer? It seems we, as a country did a pretty good job of educating our citizenry in the 20th century, warts and all. Jeesh.
Steven Singer. Sorry.
I just completed a little exercise looking at USDE investments in charter schools. There is a grants awarded database for each of these charter school programs, most of these between 2009 and 2016. More recent awards are not yet listed.
Charter School Program State Educational Agencies (SEA). 28 grants from 2009-2016 $1,442,063,317.
Charter Schools Program Non-State Educational Agencies (Non-SEA). 112 grants from 2009-2016 $46,928,784.
Charter Schools Program Non-State Educational Agencies (Non-SEA) Dissemination Grants. 11 grants from 2010-2016 $4,220,970
Charter Schools Program Grants for Replications and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools. 50 grants from 2010-2016 $492,875,328
Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program. 12 grants from 2009-2016 $92,582,207.
National Leadership Activities Grant. 10 grants from 2009-2015 $22,884,648.
State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants. 3 grants from 2009-2014 one for four years 32 for 5 years. $112,502,749.
Total for these grant programs $2,167,129,219 (two billion, one hundred sixty seven million, one hundred twenty nine thousand, two hundred nineteen dollars)
That is part of the documentation. Grants are searchable by who got the grant, year, state, city, and so on. I did not perform those analyses.
Each of these programs also has a fiscal year-by-fiscal year history of NEW funds allocated and CONTINUING fund allocated, which sum to year-by year totals. Here are my calculations from the data.
Charter School Program State Educational Agencies (SEA). By fiscal year from 1995 to 2016 = $3,179,365,398
Charter Schools Program Non-State Educational Agencies (Non-SEA). By fiscal year from 2009 to 2016 = $68,906,403
Charter Schools Program Non-State Educational Agencies (Non-SEA) Dissemination Grant. By fiscal year from 2009 to 2015 = $2,602,868
Charter Schools Program Grants for Replications and Expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools. By fiscal year from 2009 to 2016 = $348,166,638
Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Program. By fiscal year from 2001 to 2016 all are new awards = $322,645,382
National Leadership Activities Grant. By fiscal year from 2010 to 2015 = $13,431,805
State Charter School Facilities Incentive Grants. By fiscal year from 2009 to 2016= $92,502,749
Total for these grant programs, fiscal year outlays = $4,006,959,243
(four billion, six million, nine hundred fifty nine thousand, two hundred forty three dollars)
These records show that federal funding for some of these programs began in 1995. The website also shows that no information is yet available beyond 2016.
Anyone who says federal funding for the charter industry has not been generous and for many years is WRONG.
Sad to see what is happening to the poor in New Orleans. Reform by the rich has little hope of providing any real benefits for the poor. Failure then, in the poorer schools is bound to repeat itself.
And while the schools fail, thousands of students will not achieve the level of education they need for a flourishing life. Many will find themselves slaves to drugs, and live lives of hopelessness. Hopefully something comes by to make meaningful change.