Erase the Board
4th March 2019 · 0 Comments
Community activism is flourishing in New Orleans. Whether it is Take Em Down NOLA’s effort to take down Confederate statues, The Fight for $15, demands by Gordon Plaza residents to be removed from the toxic waste dump their homes were built on, the People’s Assembly work for economic parity, Justice & Beyond’s effort to hold politicians accountable, Friends and Families of Incarcerated Children seeking criminal justice reform, or Black Youth for Progress, activists are taking to the streets, getting in the faces of elected officials, and demanding justice.
The newest group to enter the battlefield is the Erase the Board Coalition (ETBC).
At 30 days old, the coalition is comprised of Step Up Louisiana, Black Men Rising, Friends and Families of Incarcerated Children, and educators and parents whose mission is to erase the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and replace them with candidates that will listen to parents.
ETBC wants to get rid of the charter school structure in New Orleans because the system is not working. The group says the One App Enrollment System is a sham and transportation services are dangerous and unmonitored.
Many parents want a central enrollment process that is fair and equitable. Group organizers say the One App system is based on a discriminatory algorithm. For example, UNO is adopting Edward Hynes Charter School is Lakeview. Sixty-six percent of the enrollment is set-aside for Lakeview residents and seats have been reserved for children of UNO employees. What about students who live in Gentilly, where do they fit in? Lakeview’s population is predominately white and Gentilly’s is predominately Black. The group calls such algorithms “segregation by design.”
Several of the top performing schools were allowed to opt out of the One App system. Audubon, Lake Forest, Lusher and Ben Franklin High School were not in the One App process. Additionally, the One App questions are invasive. Parents and guardians have to answer questions about income, before even choosing a school. Clearly, there are not enough quality seats and about 35 percent of applicants don’t get their choice of schools.
A real assessment of the One App system and the Charter school structure shows that neither offers true school choice. Entrance tests, lotteries, and the assessment of parents’ income and zip code, and free lunch status add up to a system of redlining that ensures that top-performing public schools remain segregated.
School transportation safety is a major issue, too. ETBC wants adult monitors to be placed on the buses and a halt to extreme busing. They say students who ride the buses are sleep-deprived from waking up at 5 a.m. for a 6 a.m. pickups. Some are on the buses for two hours at a time. Many don’t get home until 6 p.m. Most of the kids are between 5-10 years old.
The early rising and late home arrivals have a negative impact on the children’s development and behavior in the classroom. There have been incidences of bullying, fighting, and sexual activity on some buses. One ETBC organizer said sexual activity was caught on a bus camera.
The ETBC wants ACT 91 repealed, qualified teachers in the schools, control of all the schools under the elected school board, and the end to the education experiment that is boldly codified in state law: Governor John Bel Edwards signed ACT 91 in 2016. The ACT transferred all Orleans Parish publicly funded schools back to the elected OPSB.
But in reality, it is a sham; a sleight of hand trick; a shell game. The schools have been transferred but the charters remain autonomous and free to operate under the disunified, unstandardize mess that the so-called Recovery School District created. As one parent in the ETBC said recently, “figures don’t lie but liars do figure,” relative to the rosy uptick in school performance scores.
In 2013, Louisiana lawmakers passed Title 17- Education, R.S. 17:3972 which stated “It is the intention of the legislators in enacting this Chapter to authorize experimentation by city and parish school boards….to provide opportunities for educators and others interested in educating pupils to form, operate or be employed within a charter school….”
However, the dismantling of the Orleans Parish public-school system and preparations for a charter school system began in 2000, when the BESE implemented a High Stakes Testing system called LEAP. Massive test failures were used to justify the takeover of the OPSB. One independent education professor judged sample LEAP test questions as age-inappropriate for elementary students.
Nonetheless, the BESE worked with the Louisiana Legislature to pass laws stripping the OPSB of its oversight and fiduciary power; and vesting it in one individual: The Superintendent. The effect of this action was voter nullification. Parents and guardians have not had real school choice nor the ability to hold the elected Orleans Parish School Board accountable since then.
The firing of 800 teachers post-Katrina and the hiring of less educated, less experienced teachers by charter schools has resulted in a less Black and less locally educated teacher workforce. This cultural mismatch in the system is a problem for the majority of students, 37,977 who are Black. Non-Black teachers of Black students have lower expectations than do black teachers. Black teachers are less likely to refer Black students for disciplinary actions.
And there is surely racial bias in where students are placed. In Orleans Public Schools, nearly 60 percent of the student population in the top six schools are white and 80 percent of Black students are in failing schools.
ETBC’s motto is “We choose education equity not the illusion of school choice.” Led by millennials, this group vows to find candidates to replace politicians on the school board, state education board, and in the state legislature that will be accountable to the parents and children. “Since Hurricane Katrina, we have seen a loss of neighborhood-based schools, extreme school busing, lack of accountability and transparency, and an overall unsafe non-harmonious school district. It is time for real local control and democratic governance of our New Orleans public schools. Our elected school board should have the right to have direct oversight and administration of our public schools. Our families deserve a uniform school district with a universal calendar, shared governance between the Charter School Boards and their respective stakeholders, and safe and adequate school transportation,” ETBC said in a statement.
Organizers are planning to sue the state over ACT 91, which ETBC says is “unconstitutional and discriminatory.” Sadly, among the lawmakers who sponsored ACT 91 are people who look like the majority of public school students: State Senators Karen Carter Peterson, Wesley Bishop, Troy Carter, and J.P Morell and State Representatives Jimmy Harris and John Bagneris.
What we have in the New Orleans public school system today is a failed experiment, segregated schools, children used as piggy banks for independent charter operators, dangerous busing, and a hodge-podge of unverifiable, unaccountable, unstandardized experimental schools based on test scores.
What we have here is the privatization of public-school dollars, $490,00,000, for a 79-school system that is tantamount to musical chairs. Several so-called failing schools are slated to close this year: Medard Nelson, Cypress Academy, Fischer Elementary, and McDonough 32. Edgar P. Harney is in search of a new charter operator.
Surely, we can do better than that for the 52,015 children in our used-to-be public schools. Nearly 20 years of failed experimentation is enough. Public school children are not guinea pigs and shouldn’t be treated as such.
This article originally published in the March 4, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
