Uber-reformer John White announced that he is resigning as superintendent of Louisiana.
He has sterling disrupter credentials.
Teach for America. Broad Academy. Joel Klein’s inner circle. Briefly leader of New Orleans’ charter district.
Mercedes Schneider has the story here. She thinks the next state superintendent might actually be an experienced educator.
Under White’s leadership, Louisiana dropped to nearly the very bottom of NAEP.
Watch to see which disruption group or leader picks him up next: the Waltons? The City Fund? John Arnold? Charles Koch? Bill Gates? Jeb Bush?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ding-dong, the chief has fled! Which old chief! The wicked chief!
Ding-dong, the wicked chief has fled.
Wake up, you sleepy state, throw out the Deformer slate!
Wake up, now. The wicked chief has fled!
He’s gone where the goblins go, to some think tank, below, below.
Yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho, yo ho!
End the tests, the charters too. Best for you and you and you.
Ding-dong the wicked chief has fled!
Maybe Trump will make him Betsy DeVos’ right hand man as all three of them seem to have a lot in common. Especially in earning their positions by merit.
White probably resigned so he can be ready to move in when Trump fires Besty DeVos.
I thought it but you said it out loud.
Can we please have a celebration first before he embarks on some new destruction course or send out a warning to our fellow advocates?
LOL!!!! Exactly!!!!
White’s stubbornness in clinging to his position has been terrible for Louisiana and a positive only in his demonstration to all of how destructive his views are. By their own standards — to my knowledge, at least — not a single Ed Reformer has been successful in an actual policy position. Sadly, nor have any really paid a price.
Congratulations, Louisiana.
They not only never pay a price, but they move onward and upward.
A perfect example is Mary Ellen Elia who moved to her NY Superintendent job from a Florida district where she shilled for Bill Gates, deformers always move on to another even higher paying job.
As long as the money keeps flowing from the Gates Foundation, from the Waltons, etc., this will be, sadly, so.
Too true, SDP. John King is another example I quickly think of. But the list is long.
I presume John White will be welcome at the Reform Leaders Summit in NOLA, June, 2020, in Tampa, Jan, 2021, and in Indianapolis, June 2021. Similar to Pahara, each year a cohort of “leaders” is chosen for the Summit. They attend seminars facilitated by “policy makers, education entrepreneurs, funders “, etc. (Notice there is no mention of a democratic process.)
The Summit is “recommended by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops” (and, is under the auspices of the University of Norte Dame ACE)…’The entire Catholic community should be encouraged to advocate for parental school choice…’ “.
Not surprisingly, like CAP, the Summit appears to have a preference for tax credits- that tactic achieves two goals, defunds government and facilitates growth of privatization.
yes; like many others, he will always be seen as a PayMeWell educational ‘expert’ to the larger reform game
As a teacher, is it o.k. to say, “I told you so!” Is anyone surprised at the horrible results brought on by him and his billionaire buddies?
If you go to Google News and search for “John White,” you’ll find numerous articles touting his tenure as a great success. I can’t post links here, but US News & World Report has one that is representative. Nauseating.
I saw the US News article touting John White’s many accomplishments as a “hard-charging reformer.” Lots of fluff about huge test score gains. I wrote an email to the writer, pointing out that it’s easy to appear to make gains when you are at the bottom. Louisiana was and is one of the lowest scoring states in the nation. White didn’t change that. In her article, she quotes White saying that “we now know what works and what doesn’t work.” He cites the TEnnessee Achievement School District (not sure if he pointed to it as an example of what does or does not work.) Funny, because the ASD has been a complete flop. A complete puff piece that defines White as a great success by citing his own press releases.
That writer who wrote the puff piece on White is an embarrassment to journalism and a hack. I hope he/she reads what I just wrote.
We shouldn’t discount the possibility that the article’s author is a tool of theocracy (Catholic or evangelical). Granted, the preferred notion is that biased writers are lazy or tools of the anti-union billionaires, most visibly represented by the Koch network.
Sigh. Good news for LA, but probably bad news for somewhere else…”dance of the lemons,” commonly performed by Broadie adminimals (&, NO, NOT teachers, as was illustrated in that awful pro-charter movie a few years back).
Like Paul Vallas keeps cropping up–can you imagine, he was–yet again–on Chicago’s Progressive Talk Radio, touted as “our friend, Paul Vallas.”
Yeah–just ask New Orleans, Philly, Chicago (CTU & Chgo. State University) & Bridgeport, CT. They’d leave out the “r” in the word friend.