While we’re told “the cream always rises to the top,” when one considers the rogues’ gallery of corrupt and/or incompetent public officials who have brought disgrace to New Orleans over the years, it’s not unreasonable to believe the opposite is true in the Crescent City. In fact, New Orleanians have become so inured to failures […] More
Last week, Will Sentell at The Advocate reported that a panel appointed by the Legislature to review Louisiana’s teacher evaluation system is gearing up to recommend a series of changes that could seriously undermine efforts to ensure every child has an effective teacher. The 17-member School Accountability Commission began its review back in October and […] More
Today I received several emails from Vimeo that they had taken down a few of my video clips in response to notices they received that I violated their Community Guidelines. Around the same time, Danielle Dreilinger, education reporter at the Times-Picayune, tweeted the following about these videos: .@petercook's anti-OPSB video, which apparently is so outrageous […] More
On Halloween, the Louisiana Supreme Court dismissed a class-action lawsuit arising from the layoffs of over 7,600 New Orleans school employees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The 5-2 decision represented a “stunning, wholesale reversal” for the plaintiffs, who prevailed both at trial and before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal; those rulings had found […] More
It’s been a tough couple weeks for our friends at the Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT). On October 15th, the Louisiana Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Act 1 is constitutional, overturning a lower court’s finding that the law violates the “single object requirement” of the Louisiana Constitution that prohibits the legislature from passing bills with […] More
A RESOLUTION OPPOSING ASININE RESOLUTIONS FROM THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE ORLEANS PARISH SCHOOL BOARD WHEREAS, generations of young New Orleanians were denied an adequate education in the city’s public schools prior to Hurricane Katrina as a result of chronic mismanagement by Orleans Parish School Board; and WHEREAS, the State of Louisiana, as duly authorized by […] More
UPDATE – 10/10/14: On Friday, October 10th, John Ayers, Executive Director of the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives announced they were retracting their report, “Beating the Odds: Academic Performance and Vulnerable Student Populations in New Orleans Public High Schools,” because it was determined the study’s methodology was flawed. Ayers released the following statement announcing […] More
Perhaps the University of Houston should review its screening process for job applicants. On Monday, the U of H issued a press release announcing the appointment of Herman Taitt as Executive Director of Facilities Management for the university. The glowing announcement included a quote from Associate Vice Chancellor Emily Messa, who said: “Herman’s extensive and […] More
This morning the Louisiana Supreme Court will hear arguments in the appeal of Eddy Oliver, et al. v. Orleans Parish School Board, the lawsuit brought on behalf of teachers terminated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In January, the Fourth Circuit of Court Appeal unanimously upheld an earlier ruling that teachers were wrongly terminated by […] More
Peter Cook