The Clean Slate

It should go without saying that Hurricane Katrina caused nearly unprecedented problems in New Orleans.

Of course, problems can lead, if one is lucky, to opportunities.  One problem/opportunity to befall New Orleans was the  complete destruction of the New Orleans public school system.  Although given the system’s performance before the hurricane, “destruction” was a pretty relative term:

According a New York Times report, New Orleans public schools were “among the most abysmal in the nation before the storm”. In the 2004 Louisiana General Exit Exams (GEE) for high school students, 96 per cent of New Orleans public school students scored below “basic” in English and 94 per cent scored below “basic” in maths. The public school district was corrupt and debt-ridden.

The NOLA Schools, presented with an unprecedented “clean slate”, literally had to start over.  One of the key initiatives was to allow, indeed promote, the formation of charter schools.  These schools are public schools,  funded with each attending student’s share of public money allotted to them, which are “chartered” by the local school board or the state department of education or some other governing body depending on the state’s charter school law 

 Five years later, PBS reports on the experiment; this is a transcription of a “NewsHour” piece by PBS’ John Merrow.

In March, President Obama sent Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to New Orleans, which some consider the national laboratory of the charter movement. Leading the city’s charter transformation is Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas.

PAUL VALLAS, Superintendent, Recovery School District: Well, I’m a believer in schools having the freedom and autonomy to make decisions that are in the best interest of the children. And so I support charter schools, because charter schools are a vehicle for achieving that type of freedom.
 
As principal of a charter school, you are responsible for everything. I make sure instruction is in place, and its effective, and its aligned with the state standards. I make sure that the budget is balanced and that we have money for payroll.

The report touches on one of the big advantages of charter schools; notwithstanding the slanders of some of their critics; the accountability loop between student, parent, teacher, principal and board is usually within one building, and decisions happen almost immediately, as opposed to the months (and sometimes years between School Board elections) at the sclerotic public districts.  Parents are not only a simple phone call from their locally-elected board members – they are much more likely to be on the board than at any big public district, especially at a big, politicized urban district.
 
The change has been immense:

 SHARON CLARK, Principal, Sophie B. Wright Middle School: As principal of a charter school, you are responsible for everything. I make sure instruction is in place, and its effective, and its aligned with the state standards. I make sure that the budget is balanced and that we have money for payroll. I make sure that we continue to register kids and that our attendance works.

JOHN MERROW: Principal Clark has used her power to make some significant changes.

Where are the boys?

One of her first decisions was to separate the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades into single-sex classes.

MALE STUDENT: At this age, boys get distracted. So by us being all boys, we’re more focused on our work.

FEMALE STUDENT: When you have boys in your class, you got to be, like, trying to impress them, but if you just in school with some girls, you’re just not worrying about it.

Try to pull that off in a public school without having to tangle with a big, Union-owned, “elected” city-wide board, a dozen special interest groups (who only tangentially have the kids’ interests at heart, if at all); you’ll be wrangling with lawyers until your kids’ grandkids are in school.

But it was the right thing to do.  It got done.  And the kids are better off for it.

FEMALE STUDENT: At the beginning of the year, I was going to Marshall. And it was like the principal couldn’t control his students. There was fighting. So I told my mama I didn’t want to go there.

When I came here, I felt like it was much better. The teachers were showing you a lot of attention, make sure you understand your work.

This parallels my experience almost perfectly.

Remember the debate on “merit pay” for good teachers, to encourage great staff to do great work, and which the Teachers Unions have bottled up and delayed, in every case, since I was in high school?

Done deal!

JOHN MERROW: Principal Clark rewards her best teachers with bonuses of up to $5,000. Darlene Rivers teaches math.

DARLENE RIVERS: With my first year with the test, my fifth-grade students scored the highest in the district. Your test scores have to be in the 90th percentile, and you get a monetary award, and I have received that. Yes, I have, I received that, and it really came in handy.

JOHN MERROW: Principal Clark does all the hiring. And if it doesn’t work out?

SHARON CLARK: If they don’t have the mission that we have in mind as part of their mission, we are free to what I call freeing up a teacher’s future.

JOHN MERROW: She means she fires teachers who don’t measure up. Clark’s authority seems to be making a difference.

SHARON CLARK: Our school is performing in the top 10 of the city. We are actually performing higher than some of the magnet schools that have selective admissions, and we don’t.

JOHN MERROW: In fact, 9 of the 10 top performing schools in the district are charters.

Amazing what a little actual empowerment, local control, and reward for effort as opposed to mere seniority can do.

There are, of course, downsides; charter schools are excellent places for the vast majority of students.  But they are frequently very small, working with very low budgets; they don’t have access to local education levies, and they can’t float bonds for facilities (at least in Minnesota), so rent comes out of most schools’ allotments.

And that means some of the services that some parents counted on in the big, public districts are harder to come by:

 JOHN MERROW: National studies support Branche. Although there are many outstanding charter schools, reports show that overall charter success is mixed. [Although you need to make sure you’re comparing apples and apples]

Branche has further reason to be wary: She says some charter schools are being unfair to disadvantaged children.

CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Parents are seeking places for their children who may have physical handicaps, mental or emotional handicapping conditions, and they’re not being accepted by charters. I get referrals from specific principals of charter schools. “Go to Banneker. Tell Miss Branche I sent you. Go to Banneker.”

JOHN MERROW: It’s what school administrators call “dumping,” transferring those with special education needs or just kids who are behaving badly to other schools.

You’re getting kids who are being pushed out of charters…

CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Correct.

JOHN MERROW: … more special-ed kids than you…

CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: Correct. Yes, exactly right.

JOHN MERROW: So the charter movement is hurting you.

CHERYLLYN BRANCHE: It is hurting children.

Well, no.  A bureaucratic practice is hurting some children, children who are by definition both outliers and who are also, currently, incredibly-badly-served by traditional big public schools.  Something does need to be done to try to reach these students…

…but they are, again, by definition, exceptions to the rule.

The whole thing is worth a read, provided you remember it’s written with the skin-deep attention to fact that you get with TV reporting, even from PBS.

5 thoughts on “The Clean Slate

  1. Until parents wake up and start paying attention to what their kids are doing, and as long as the government schools are more focused on inculcating the leftist meme of the day than academics, and as long as the teachers union is in charge, we need to reinstate “dumping ground” schools.

    When I was in high school, we had “continuation” schools to send trouble makers.

    Selling dope? Continuation.

    Fighting every day? Continuation.

    Attack a teacher verbally? Continuation

    or physically? Jail, then continuation.

    It only takes one kid to screw up a classroom. nd it’s a crime to let one moron cheat 20+ other kids out of their education.

    Despite the nice warm feeling terms like “no child left behind” give people, some kids will get left behind, and some kids need to be left behind.

  2. I’ve long thought that the elementary schools should require uniforms and that middle grades should be sex-segregated, separate buildings if possible. We’ll get vouchers long before that happens here.

  3. Slow-class kids have always had a hard time of it. Mainstreaming them didn’t help the slow kids as much as it hurt average and smart kids.

    Kids should be loosely grouped by age for maturity reaons, but more importantly grouped by grade level for learning reasons; otherwise, when the class pace is geared for Average Johnny, the smart kid is bored and the slow kid is bewildered.

    We SHOULD be “dumping” special ed students into special schools where they can get the individual attention they need (and which the school gets extra money to provide).

    .

  4. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Duncan: “Reset”

  5. Pingback: The Greenroom » Forum Archive » Duncan: “Reset”

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