New Orleans Public Schools Pre Hurricane Katrina

1. New Orleans Public SchoolsPre Hurricane Katrina Educationally, New Orleans looked like any other urban city in America struggling to provide good learning environments for its large number of poor and minority students. Pre Hurricane Katrina the public school district had a two-tier system. There was a small cadre of schools (most of which had admission requirements) that provided a quality learning environment for its students, while the majority of schools provided a poor learning environment for the remaining students. With that, New Orleans had the highest and lowest performing schools in the state of Louisiana.

2. New Orleans Public SchoolsPre Hurricane Katrina Academics High Testing ------ High Schools,4th & 8th Grades Typical - Annual Gains Spring 2005- 80% met AYP, several schools received awards School Composition 123 Direct Run Schools 4 Charter Schools

3. New OrleansUnknown Road First city to have “mandatory” evacuation First city to “de-populate” First city in modern times to lose its tax base in less than 3 hours

4. The Coup On Sept. 7, 2005, the Heritage Foundation, perhaps the most influential conservative think tank in Washington D.C., released a memoran­dum on Gulf Coast recovery urging Congress to suspend the law re­quiring federal contractors to pay their workers the prevailing wage, repeal or waive portions of the Clean Air Act, eliminate or postpone various taxes and promote “new educational options,” including “charter schools, as well as private and religious schools.”

5. The Coup State Education Superintendent Picard – no schools for New Orleans supported other parishes Picard’s Letter to Sec. of Education - Margaret Spelling Picard’s Attempt to Remove NOPS Superintendent

6. The CoupACT 35 In November 2005 Act 35 took over 107 schools from New Orleans Public Schools and stated that they were “failing”. Prior to ACT 35 there was a policy for school takeover, however in ACT 35 the state changed the rules (60 SPS to 87.4 SPS). If Louisiana officials had applied pre-Act 35 standards to Orleans Parish, the state could have assumed control of only 13schools. No local or democratic control Hijacked Charter Model Charter School - Unquestionable Autonomy

7. The Coup The state takeover in New Orleans became the first takeover where the employees were fired (teachers, principals, support personnel, bus drives...etc). No schools (local board had no funds), employees filed suit in October 2005 Employees suddenly unemployed, no health benefits, severance, No exit interview or employment counseling. Legal Action Discovery – violated policy, property rights, federal funds Six years later the school employees won their class action lawsuit.

8. RSD SchoolsToday Academics * School Personnel - Inexperience & No Training – TFA and alternative certification * Destroying School Communities - John McDonogh High School & Marshall Middle * School Composition - 70% of charters , 4 out 5 students attend a charter school --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After 7 years, the RSD-NO is a district in academic crisis with the majority of its schools failing or substandard with the respect to achievement. The market model schools (RSD-NO) rank 69th out of 70th on the state mandated test last spring. Recovery School District in New Orleans: National Model for Reform or District in Academic Crisis, Research on Reforms, Hatfield 2012

9. RSD Dysfunctional Operations Free Government Money Dysfunctional Operations Lack of Transparency and Accountabilty Over $4 billion sent to rebuild and reforms public schools in Louisiana (Hurricanes Katrina & Rita) Federal Recovery funds - $756 million Foreign & Foundations - $ 300 million * FEMA (rebuild schools)- $2.9 billion Fiscal Mismanagement Louisiana Legislative Auditor Questionable Contracts Alvarez and Marcal– NOPS $1.1 million to $2 million, RSD March 2006 - $29 million Security Company (Guidry) $25- $30 million security for 28 schools Transportation – twice the cost of comparable cities

10. Education for Sale Vouchers Legislation – American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Playbook Flawed legislation – illegally passed LDOE Awarding of Vouchers to private schools - 315 studentswith no teachers, students given video tapes for instruction - 150 students to school participated in pilot voucher program that had 78% failure rate - 120 students to school operating illegally, closed by state fire marshal No accountability for voucher schools Federal Judge ruled that voucher program violated Desegregation Order. Coalition of organizations (Unions and Associations) won law suit state Judge rules unconstitutional, illegally passed.

11. We Went Backwards Post Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is by and large a tier system that offers a quality education to students in selective charter schools (with academic admission requirements). The “tiered” system of public schools sorts white students and a relatively small share of students of color into selective schools while steering the majority of low-income students of color to high-poverty schools. The State of Public Schools in Post Katrina New Orleans: The Challenge of Creating Equal Opportunituity, Institute on Race and Poverty 2010, University of Minnesota Law School.

12. Backwards Returns the equity and access obstacles we fought to remove. Brown vs Board of Education Case 1954 • Control Student Population • Control Resources Plessyvs Ferguson Case 1896 • Separate and Unequal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Disengages the public from the education process

13. Backwards New Orleans charters are less about responding to the needs of racially oppressed communities and more about reconstruction of the new newly governed South one in which white entrepreneurs (with black allies) capitalize on black schools and neighborhoods by obtaining public monies to build and manage charter schools. Race, Charter Schools and Conscious Capitalism: On the Spatial Politics of Whiteness as Property (and the Unconscionable Assault on Black New Orleans, Harvard Educational Review in 2011, Buras

14. Lessons from New Orleans New Orleans has provided the country with a valuable lesson about improving public education. The reforms in New Orleans for the past seven years have not had all the obstacles that the education reformers has described for years as a hindrance to improving our public schools in America. * Teacher Unions- reason for the failure of public education (collective bargaining contracts) * Teachers- get rid of those poor teachers have failed our children * Decentralized – large bureaucratic school districts don’t work * No local elected board * New Teachers - Teach for America or New Teacher Project * Schools are run by privately managed charter boards. The reformed school district in New Orleans proves, once and for all, that the public education privatizers and so-called reformers are WRONG.