Tonight, the NAACP will be holding a hearing on charter schools at the New Orleans City Council Chambers (1300 Perdido Street) starting at 5:30pm. It will be the sixth hearing that the NAACP has held in cities across the country following their inexplicable call for a moratorium on charter schools last fall. The NAACP’s call […] More
When teachers unions attacked charter schools in Washington State by filing lawsuits challenging their constitutionality, reformers from across the nation rushed to their defense. A media campaign was launched with the hashtag #SaveWACharterSchools. Op-eds were written. Amicus briefs were filed. Rallies were organized. Pro-charter forces raised such a fuss that the fight in Washington State […] More
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten and National Education Association (NEA) president Lily Eskelsen García joined 11 members of Congress for a press conference on Tuesday to announce the formation of a new caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives focused on public education issues. This morning I held a press conference with Rep. […] More
When the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) made the difficult decision to close Baton Rouge Charter Academy in Mid-City (BRCA) last month, that was supposed to be the final word on the matter. But apparently Jon Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA, the organization which runs BRCA, didn’t get the memo. Charles Lussier […] More
On Friday, Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) Superintendent Henderson Lewis announced that he will turn New Orleans’ five remaining traditional public schools into charters by the start of the 2017-18 school year. Lewis will present his transition plan to the school board on Tuesday, although it will be little more than a formality. Under state […] More
Note: This is the second installment of a two-part series. You can read Part I here. When Kyle Serrette learned back in February that Louisiana was on the verge of winning an $8 million charter school grant from U.S. Department of Education, he wasn’t happy about the news. After all, he had spent the previous […] More
Over the past year, a small group of education leaders from across Louisiana has been secretly plotting to curtail charter school expansion, weaken the state’s accountability policies, and rewrite the law passed earlier this year to return New Orleans schools to local control. The group, which calls itself the Louisiana Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools […] More
Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association (NEA), visited Rogers High School in Spokane, Washington last week. While she was there, she sat down for an interview with Wilson Criscione of the Pacific Northwest Inlander, in which she made several outlandish claims that had absolutely no connection to the truth. Here’s a summary […] More
Anyway you slice it, last week was pretty disastrous for the education reform movement. On Election Day, two closely watched and fiercely contested ballot initiatives backed by reformers in Massachusetts and Georgia went down in defeat. The former was an effort to lift the Bay State’s charter school cap, while the latter was a proposition […] More
On Thursday, the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) held “walk-ins” in cities across the country to call for an increase in education funding, a reduction in standardized testing, and limits on charter school expansion. The Alliance’s “Day of Action” drew plenty of media coverage, most of which portrayed the walk-ins as a genuine expression […] More
I’ll be on Garland Robinette’s radio show, “The Think Tank” on WWL AM 807/FM 105.3 on Monday to discuss the ongoing legal battle over a new funding plan for New Orleans schools. Earlier this week, attorneys for Lusher and Lake Forest, two selective-admissions charter schools under the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), argued in federal […] More
We have an old saying down here in Louisiana: Thank God for Mississippi. It’s a cynical expression alluding to the fact that no matter how poorly Louisiana fares in national rankings of social and economic health, things for our neighbors in the Magnolia State are almost inevitably worse. That’s especially true when it comes to indicators for children. Just last month, […] More