OPSB superintendent’s proposals under fire
15th June 2015 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
As new Orleans Parish School Board Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr. briefed board members about his proposed reorganization of the school district’s central office last Thursday, supporters of the plans asserted that the further decentralization and movement toward a more complete charter-school system would help to continue the gradual improvement of the city’s schools.
However, critics and community activists framed Lewis’ proposals as the continuation of a lack of transparency on the part of school administrations that opponents to the proposals feel gradually shuts the public out more and more from the decision-making process regarding their children’s educational future.
Furthermore, critics insinuated that the proposed changes put forth, including an alleged 100 staffing cuts, were already a done deal — without satisfactory public input and driven behind the scenes by Leslie Jacobs, an influential and successful businesswoman, former local and state school board member and current activist in favor of further education reforms in New Orleans through the non-profit Educate Now!
In the days leading up to last week’s OPSB committee meetings and Lewis’ briefing, Pat Bryant, the co-founder of Justice and Beyond — a local grassroots organization advocating, among other goals, for the preservation of the city’s public schools — issued a statement that openly questions Jacobs’ alleged continued role in the OPSB’s decision-making process and the true motivations behind the proposed staff cuts.
“Who are the administrators who will be fired, and why do they not fit into Leslie Jacobs’ plan to run education?” Bryant wrote. “Who is Leslie Jacobs, this person that behind the scenes controls public education?”
But after Thursday’s committee meetings, OPSB President Seth Bloom said such assertions are simply, as far as he knows, not true.
“That seems like a conspiracy theory to me,” Bloom said. “Leslie Jacobs has not been involved in any behind-the-scenes meetings that I’ve attended, and if it’s going on, I’m not aware of it.”
Neither Jacobs nor representatives from Educate Now! responded to inquiries seeking comment. But Bloom said he has full faith in Lewis’ efforts and dedication to continuing the improvement of NOLA schools, including his restructuring proposals.
“At this point, I’m excited about the reorganization of the central office,” he said.
“We are no longer a traditional school district,” he added, referring to the large number of charter schools in the city, “so we shouldn’t have a traditional organization.”
Bloom added that across the country, more and more school districts are exploring the concepts of charter schools, decentralization and reallocation of authority over individual schools, and reorganization of their business “portfolios.” By continuing on the path it’s already begun, Bloom said, the OPSB is keeping in line with nationwide trends.
“Philosophically, I’ve always been in agreement with a charter school system,” he said. “And while there will certainly still be public schools, they should be cost-effective and accountable as to where the dollars are going.”
Still, Bloom stressed that when it comes to the proposed changes, “I’m still reserving judgment until they have been implemented.”
But for opposing groups like Justice and Beyond, even that comment by Bloom is a loaded statement because it hints that the school board has already made up its mind to adopt Lewis’ plan, and without sufficient public input.
“Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening with our educational system here,” said Nakita Shavers, community service coordinator for Justice and Beyond. “Things are happening before the community has had enough knowledge of the situation.”
Although Bryant couldn’t be reached for further comment regarding Jacobs’ role, Shavers said Jacobs wields too much power in both politics and education, to the detriment of New Orleans’ schools and political system.
“I think Mrs. Jacobs is a very, very strong woman,” Shavers said. “She has an astronomical amount of resources that weigh everything in her favor — politically, in our educational system, privately … She definitely knows where to put her power and money.”
Unfortunately, details of both sides’ assertions continue to be vague. Just as Lewis’ actual remarks to the school board lacked a clear definition of the changes and omitted a concrete number of possible staff cuts that were to come, it remained unclear where exactly Bryant came across the number of 100 cuts.
Shavers referred such detailed questions to Bryant, but Bryant couldn’t be reached for comment by deadline. Shavers said Bryant revealed that figure at a Justice and Beyond meeting June 8 but didn’t explain where the figure came from.
For opponents of the OPSB’s continued move toward decentralization, the changes are resulting in too much autonomy on the part of individual schools, which has the effect of removing the public from the decision-making process and putting an end to a centralized public school system, a trend that’s slowly been gathering steam since the original state takeover of the New Orleans school system after Hurricane Katrina.
Vincent Rossmeier, policy director for the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University, noted that New Orleans, compared to other large-city school systems across the country, has the highest rate of student enrollment in charter schools in the city at over 90 percent. The next highest urban area is metro Detroit, which has less than 60 percent of its students in charter schools.
Rossmeier said the devastation caused to the local school system by Katrina certainly factored into the current evolution of the city’s educational operations, but he also stressed that New Orleans schools “had been performing poorly beforehand.”
By stressing reform and giving each school greater autonomy in its decision-making, there’s no doubt New Orleans’ schools have dramatically improved in terms of performance and overall quality, Rossmeier said.
“I would say pretty unequivocally that schools in New Orleans have increased in quality greatly over the last 10 years,” he said. “They’re not great, but they’ve gone from failing to average.”
Rossmeier asserted that the OPSB’s moves, including the new ones being put forth by Lewis, are not actually bringing an end to the notion of public schools in New Orleans. Noting that the city’s charter schools themselves are largely run by non-profit organizations, Rossmeier said that because of that and the fact that students are enrolling in facilities that are ultimately funded by public, taxpayer money, the claim that public schools are being destroyed is “a non-sequitur.”
“Charter schools are public schools,” he asserted. “You can potentially apply to any school that you want.”
This article originally published in the June 15, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
