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
Directions: Below are three examples of controversial education issues in New Orleans. Each issue includes two statements that describe the same scenario, albeit in slightly different ways. Read each statement and then answer the question that follows. Issue 1: Standardized Testing Statement A: “More than a third of the city’s schools were flagged by the […] More
The expression “market-based reform” (or some variation thereof) gets thrown about by folks on both sides of the education reform debate. Opponents use it as a term of derision, intended to describe what they feel is an impersonal, metrics-obsessed approach to teaching and learning. Among supporters, it has a positive connotation, with advocates incessantly touting […] More
For most of New Orleans’ 45,000 public school students, Monday marked the first day of a new school year and NPR education correspondent Claudio Sanchez was in town reporting for a new series of nprEd Team stories focusing on the city’s school reform efforts since Hurricane Katrina. When I initially heard NPR was planning to […] More
In May, a national coalition that includes the Journey For Justice Alliance (J4J), the Advancement Project, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the National Education Association (NEA), filed a civil rights complaint [see full text of complaint below] alleging that the Recovery School District’s school closure policy “provides circumstantial evidence of intentional discrimination” against […] More
This post was originally published on PE+CO: Louisiana Education Legislation Update In one of the most shameless acts of political pandering in recent memory, Governor Bobby Jindal released a statement on Monday calling on legislators to withdrawal from the consortium of states developing the Partnership of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test. Just two […] More
This post was originally published on PE+CO: Louisiana Education Legislation Update A report in The Advocate this morning has brought to light an effort by the leadership of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents (LASS) to cut a back-room deal with Tea Party-aligned lawmakers to kill Common Core. Will Sentell writes that LASS has been […] More
Dear Steve, I was catching up on New Orleans education news yesterday, when I came across an article in the Times-Picayune focusing on Tuesday’s board meeting at John McDonogh Senior High School. I was surprised to read that you spent most of the meeting trying to deflect blame for John Mac’s poor performance since your […] More
A bill pre-filed by State Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) on Wednesday indicates that he plans to resume his attack on charter schools during the upcoming legislative session. Edwards’ proposed legislation, House Bill 101, would force charter schools to follow the same eligibility and certification guidelines required for staff in traditional public schools. Freedom from […] More
Peter Cook