OPSB endorses return of schools by 2018
18th April 2016 · 0 Comments
By Kari Dequine Harden
Contributing Writer
Ten years later, the Recovery School District (RSD) remains firmly entrenched in New Orleans, and remains the governing authority of the vast majority of the city’s publically funded private charter schools.
But several legislators have recently filed bills in Baton Rouge which set up mechanisms and a timeframe for the return of the schools to the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB).
Last week, the OPSB voted to pass a resolution endorsing two bills (HB 1103 and HB 1108) introduced by Louisiana State Rep. Joseph Bouie. They also unanimously approved a general resolution, “endorsing a return of schools to local oversight by July, 1, 2018 and authorizing the Superintendent to act in order to advance this goal.”
Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr., who started in March 2015, was hired on a platform of promising to work toward returning schools to OPSB jurisdiction.
The resolution endorsing Bouie’s bills was passed in a 4-1 vote, with board member Woody Koppel casting the sole vote against. Members Cynthia Cade, Nolan Marshall, Leslie Ellison, and John Smith voted in favor. Seth Bloom and Sarah Usdin were absent.
Bouie’s HB 1033 requires the transfer of all RSD schools that are no longer failing to the OPSB within two years of no longer being designated as failing, some by a July 2017 deadline, and the remainder by July 2018.
Two other bills have also been filed by other lawmakers, but the OPSB declined to make an official recommendation on either at last Wednesday’s (April 13) special board meeting.
Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, wife of RSD Deputy Superintendent Dana Peterson, filed SB 432, which thus far has garnered the most support from other legislators. Peterson’s bill also sets a July 1, 2018 deadline for every school to return, but is 11 pages long and much more complicated than Bouie’s bills, with language skeptics see as keeping too much power outside of the hands of the OPSB.
Rep. Neil Abramson filed another similar bill, HB 1111, which encourages, but does not mandate, the return of 10 schools in 2017.
It isn’t the first attempt by legislators, including Bouie, to force the return of the schools to public oversight, but past attempts have been unsuccessful in the face of powerful pro-privatization lobbyists and state officials.
Schools meeting certain criteria have also been given the voluntary option to return to the OPSB, but only a handful have chosen to do so – leaving about 50 under state oversight.
The RSD, the nation’s first urban privatized school district, also controls the school facilities, in which billions of dollars have been pumped for renovating and rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina.
Bouie’s two bills are very similar in their provisions, with HB 1008 specifically dictating the return of the physical facilities, along with school operators, to local control.
A decade ago, with the passage of Act 35 following Hurricane Katrina, the RSD takeover was sold to the public as temporary.
According to a study by Tulane University’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives:
“Intended as a mechanism for restructuring and reform, the RSD was never meant to be a permanent part of the public school governance landscape in New Orleans. Instead, the RSD was meant to take control of and turn around chronically failing schools for an initial period of five years. After that time, and assuming adequate school improvement, schools would be released from the jurisdiction of the RSD and returned to their local school board. ”
But that didn’t happen. Instead, the RSD either shuttered the schools or handed them to over to private operators. And the charters — now all private entities, autonomous, and their own Local Education Agency — were given the power to choose whether or not they wanted to return to the OPSB.
The RSD, despite having no more schools to run, is still fully staffed in New Orleans as a very top-heavy administration with six-figure salaries for those at the top.
Education activist Karran Harper Royal, who has long advocated for local control and increased public oversight, told the board members she was “happy we are finally at the day we are talking about the reunification of the school system.”
However she went on to clarify that for many parents she works with, the idea of “getting our schools back” means the return of neighborhood schools, and traditional public schools as an option over charter schools.
The new legislation, she warned, “sounds like a continuation of private schools operating with public money.”
Deirdre Lewis also addressed the board, saying “I’m glad we are trying to work together to stop the experimentation on Black children.”
This article originally published in the April 18, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
