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
Update 01/27/14: Leslie Jacobs, former BESE/OPSB member and founder of EducateNow!, says claims that the teachers’ lawsuit could bankrupt the Orleans Parish School Board are unfounded: “School boards are ‘political subdivisions’ of the state, and both the Louisiana Constitution and the Governmental Claims Act protect political subdivisions from having their property or assets seized in execution […] More
The one thing that is clear to anyone who’s attempted to read Mercedes Schneider’s blog is that she’s angry: angry at John Merrow, angry about Common Core, angry about evolution, and angry at Teach For America, along with a whole host of other things. However, she reserves her greatest fury for the Recovery School District’s effort to improve […] More
Recently Newsweek, the once-lauded news magazine that is now a shell of its former self, cast aside any lingering shred of respectability it still had with the publication of a highly distorted appraisal of New Orleans’ post-Katrina education system. The piece, entitled, The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans’ schools a model for the nation – […] More
I generally refrain from challenging the absurd claims of the anti-progress Ravitchite fringe, since their pathological obsession with “proving” that education reform is part of a sinister corporate plot is clearly delusional, if not mildly amusing. However, now that long-time anti-edreform blogger and conspiracy theorist Jason “Crazy Crawfish” France has decided to smear Sci Academy – the highest-performing open-enrollment school in the Recovery School District and a […] More
Former Recovery School District superintendent, Paul Vallas, has been in the news recently for comments he made during a May 10th panel discussion, “An Agenda for Public Education: Challenges and Possibilities,” at CUNY Hunter’s Institute for Education Policy. Over the course of the discussion, Vallas, along with the College Board’s David Coleman, NY State Education […] More
It seems that while John McDonogh’s leaders were busy preparing for their close-ups on “Blackboard Wars” over the past several months, no one was minding the till. Jessica Williams of The Lens posted a story on Wednesday about a looming budget shortfall at John McDonogh Senior High School that could threaten its ability to make […] More
I overlooked a number of bills in my earlier post on the subject, so I wanted to highlight a few more state legislators who are sponsoring potentially harmful education legislation in the upcoming session. (Just a reminder: the 2013 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature convenes at noon today – Monday, April 8th)… House Bill […] More
Jessica Williams of The Lens has a new article out on the dustup over the planned merger of O. Perry Walker and L.B. Landry and the questions it raises about the level of community input in our city’s charter school system. Williams’ article presents a fairly balanced view of the issues and opinions involved in […] More
In its first full meeting of 2013, the Orleans Parish School Board sent a clear message to the community: You would be insane to return schools to our control. Over the past year, advocates for a return to local control have sought to portray OPSB as a model of bureaucratic rehabilitation. They pointed to the […] More
Peter Cook