In the city of New Orleans, if the (corporate Charter) Recovery School District was held to the same standard that allowed for the takeover of the schools after the storm, the RSD would only be allowed to keep four schools. Four. But the rules were rewritten so they could keep them all even as they fail and lie, fail and lie, fail and lie.
Ashana Bigard is a parent advocate. She wrote this article for “The Progressive.” She is aware that politicians are promoting New Orleans as a national model. She warns that the “reforms” are a fraud. She says, talk to the parents, not the hucksters.
“As a New Orleans parent and an active member of my community, I think of myself as an expert on the experiment in education reform that tranformed my city into the nation’s first all-charter school district. So when I attended a recent community-centered conference on “The New Orleans Model of Urban School Reform: A Guide or a Warning for Cities Across the Nation?” I wasn’t sure there’d be much for me to learn.
“In fact, given the focus on academic urban education research, I feared the event would speak only to people who have Ph.D.s or are working on getting one, neither of which describes me.
“But…
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