New Orleans Charter Schools: A failed experiment?
4th January 2022 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
Part I
Despite the public relations and the glowing and crowing about the efficacy of charter schools, the truth is that Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 path of destruction left downtown New Orleans in shambles, claimed at least 1,500 lives, and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, some of whom never returned.
On the bright side, the man-made disaster offered the opportunity for city leaders to rebuild and rebrand New Orleans. The possibilities for building a strong, beautiful, functional city were endless.
However, dark forces in the city saw an opportunity to capitalize on our future – our children – turn them into commodities, and destroy the public education system in the process for the love of money.
Several studies conducted since the world’s first all-charter school system was erected in 2006 in New Orleans have exposed the disturbing reality of what was sold as a strategic plan to give parents an educational choice.
Fifteen years after a group of capitalists took over 100 public schools and privatized nearly $2 billion in public money to create an all-charter school district – the Recovery School District (RSD), which was accountable to no one – the truth is out.
What we have as we enter 2022 is a “flawed and failed” experiment gone wrong, the loss of $1.6 billion, and our children less educated than they were in 2006, according to several studies with glaring red flags that call for change.
“Whose Choice? Student Experiences and Outcomes in the New Orleans School Marketplace,” written by Frank Adamson, Channa Cook-Harvey and Linda Darling-Hammond in 2015, offers the results of an in-depth investigation into what academics call “The New Orleans School Marketplace.” Referencing a school system as a “marketplace” is telling in and of itself.
The authors of the 61-page study presented empirical data in five chapters: “The New Orleans Charter Experiment,” “The Choice Process in Action, Student Experiences, Student Outcomes and School Results Over Time,” and “Conclusions and Implications.” The study’s appendices include “Data Collection and Methods” and the “Legal Framework for Charter Schools in Louisiana.”
In acknowledging those who helped them, the authors stated their purpose in conducting the study: “We hope that this report, along with the work of others, will contribute to improving education for all students in New Orleans.”
Here are a few highlights:
The New Orleans Charter Experiment
In the introductory chapter, the authors trace the charter school movement in the U.S. from its beginning and delineate the conventional wisdom that justifies their existence:
The charter movement has been inspired by several rationales, among them the idea that better educational outcomes will result if families can choose schools with different philosophies and programs that fit their preferences and needs; school providers are given opportunities to innovate unconstrained by bureaucratic requirements regarding their design, staffing and operations; and, schools are motivated to improve through competition for customers (who bring with them enrollment dollars) and through the requirement that they will be evaluated and re-approved for operation every few years.
Some school districts have adopted creating “portfolios” of options. Central to the philosophy of a portfolio district is the idea that “schools are not assumed to be permanent but contingent: schools in which students do not learn enough…are transformed or replaced. A portfolio district is built for continuous improvement via expansion and imitation of highest-performing schools, closure, and replacement of the lowest-performing.”
New Orleans adopted the portfolio district approach and moved to a system composed nearly entirely of charter schools. This created an educational environment like no other, citywide, featuring multiple superintendents, boards of education, approaches to school admissions and operations, curriculum, instruction and student discipline.
Furthermore, Louisiana’s charter school policy is unique from other states. The law explicitly allows some schools to engage in selective enrollment practices that resemble private schools. Public charter schools can require minimum grade point averages and standardized test scores. They can require applicants to have interviews, provide portfolios of work, or submit letters of recommendation to be admitted.
The State’s Education Experiment
The authors aptly name the first chapter of their study “The New Orleans Charter Experiment” not flippantly nor for sarcastic effect. No. They called it what Louisiana law called it, an experiment.
“It is the intention of the Legislature to authorize experimentation by city and parish school boards by authorizing the creation of innovative kinds of independent public schools for pupils. The purposes of this shall be to provide opportunities for educators and others interested in educating pupils to form, operate, or be employed within a charter school,” according to LA Rev Stat § 17:3972.
“In 2003, the Louisiana Legislature voted to create the state Recovery School District (RSD), an entity whose purpose was to take control of and turn around persistently low-performing public schools. By August 2005, five failing schools in New Orleans had been transformed into charter schools under the auspices of the RSD. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Legislature passed Act 35 in November 2005 and immediately transferred over 100 low-performing Orleans Parish schools to the RSD. As of the 2014-15 school year, the RSD oversaw 57 charter schools operating in New Orleans. These schools are operated by 24 different non-profit charter management organizations,” according to Louisiana Believes.
The grand experiment and the Legislature’s justification for creating the all-charter school district sounded legitimately altruistic. However, a closer look at the charter schools’ lack of accountability and professional oversight, and overpaid administrators, speaks volumes.
NEXT WEEK: NEW ORLEANS CHARTER SCHOOLS: PART 2 – CHOICES AND STUDENT EXPERIENCES
This article originally published in the January 3, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
