Reconsidering Public Education in New Orleans

It's been many many months since I've talked about the state of public schools, which had previously been one of my more consistent beats.

I was pretty demoralized by the way the School Facilities Master Plan went down and the results of the Orleans Parish School Board elections only compounded my misery.

I've been trying to rethink how to approach the issue of public education given that some of the things I had been trying to fight against or force compromise on have become established reality.

One of the things I'd been emphasizing was the disorganized and reckless charterization and privatization. I was worried that the RSD had no real game plan for the eventual restoration of local control over schools. The implications of having such a balkanized administrative model over the short term were alarming; the potential for waste is important enough, but inattentiveness to general admission traditional public schools was scariest.

Although this is anecdotal based off of different things I've heard and read, I have noticed that, lately, there does appear to be increased concern in regard to poor performance at RSD schools. But one thing I think is disingenuous about the RSD is that poor performing traditional schools are almost set up to fail. Poor test scores provide the impetus to bring in charter operators to take over. This is happening at Frederick Douglass High School, for instance. Though the building was in sound condition, it had been slated for closure as recently as this fall; the award winning writing program, Students at the Center, was made unwelcome. In this kind of environment, how can a successful program be implemented? It can't.

But low and behold, Frederick Douglass High School has been saved because a charter operator, KIPP, is now interested in the facility.

Now you may find this kind of approach - helping schools into academic bankruptcy via systemic confusion or neglect - to be pretty disingenuous. And so do I.

Still, Paul Vallas has pretty successfully implemented what he set out to implement - the largest experiment in charterization in the nation's history. Whether that translates into higher achievement for students is another matter entirely. So is whether or not this model is economically or physically sustainable in the medium or long term, given that Mr. Vallas has made me look smart for predicting that he'd stretch his own budget to the max by spending one time revenue on recurring costs.

I advocated for a model resembling something closer to pilot schools in Boston, which allow for the academic exploration and experimentation that was the impetus for progressive embrace of the charter concept in the first place but without the same risks associated with unadulterated private charter boards. The pilot model allows for successes in one school to be replicated in others. Charters organizations, on the other hand, become like mini corporations, and successes are too easily treated as trade secrets. It's the difference between a true public education system and a for-profit education industry.

On the national level, people that have been alarmed by the ramrod approach of some charter proponents do not necessarily have an ally in the Obama administration, depending on whether early stances on issues like merit pay for teachers (which sounds better in theory than it might be in practice) foreshadow other policies.

Given the 'success' of Vallas' charterization plan and the larger momentum of the privatization movement on the national level, local advocates of true public education need to think through where they're at on certain issues and reorient in order to make the best of the new calculus.

One thing I'd like to see is a real shake up at UTNO. I don't know if that means management changes there, since I'm not particularly familiar with who's in charge. But it does mean that there needs to be a focus on organizing the younger TeachNola and TFA teachers. Things like merit pay appear to be on their way. UTNO would be wise to be ready to make sure that the measures used to determine achievement are fair to teachers. Beyond that, there needs to be a plan that grants good teachers legitimate stable job security without entrenching bad teachers. Given that UTNO's relevance has cratered, now is as good a time as any to reorient, as painful as it might be to do so.

On the issue of charters, I think at this point it's hard to just dig in and fight against the charters. It's not that it's an unstoppable freight train, it's that the train has already passed our station. What I think we need to do moving forward is force the RSD, OPSB, and the various charter operators to come up with a road map to local administration where charters cede some degree of control to a centralized body responsible for forceful oversight. In other words, whereas I'd been advocating that we move from traditional public schools directly to something resembling pilot schools, perhaps it's useful to think of the current balkanized charter landscape as the middle step in between the overly centralized OPSB of the past and a pragmatic pilot model that restores the voters of Orleans Parish to their rightful role as overseers of their own schools.

To that end, I found some of what was in this article to be extremely heartening given my low opinion of the new OPSB and the sober reconsideration I've been giving to some of these issues.

Later this week, several groups, including the Committee for a Better New Orleans/Metropolitan Area Committee, the Children's Defense Fund and the Urban League, are expected to announce a new coalition that will explore the future of public education in the city, including the question of long-term governance.

"Everything related to public education will be put on the table, " said Keith Twitchell, president of CBNO/MAC. He declined to release more details until the formal announcement, which is expected Thursday.

--

School Board President Woody Koppel said the board does not intend to "sit idly by" and wait for someone else to determine its fate.

"I believe we need an opportunity, as a community, to openly govern our schools, " he said. "I think that people want to have schools that are run by people who live near them."

It's going to be messy, but hopefully hitting rock bottom this past fall will force us to figure out where the path upward is.

--

I've also been sitting on some really dynamite stuff in regard to how the federal stimulus package touches New Orleans schools but it's all still raw information. I've been really busy but hopefully by next week I'll have something to publish for everyone about that.

Question

If Governor Bobby Jindal believes that New Orleans schools have been "reinvented" post-Katrina sufficiently enough that he considers federal stimulus money for education in Louisiana to be wasteful spending but Congressman Joe Cao voted against the stimulus because apparently he believed it didn't include enough for schools, then what are we supposed to believe?

How Many Times Did Jindal Lie?

Yesterday at the bottom of my post recapping Bobby Jindal's national weird-out, I described how the Governor totally distorted his record on education.

Now, TPM Muckraker's Zachary Roth has been looking into whether or not Bobby Jindal's account of meeting with Sheriff Harry Lee during Katrina is a fabrication.

Here is what Jindal said:

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

Did Governor Jindal fabricate this story? TPM is has collected evidence indicating that he may have.

Maybe us locals can help figure it out.

Update:

The shellfish tracks another lie from Jindal's speech, the one about what a waste it apparently is to keep an eye on active volcanoes in populated areas.

Jindal distorts own record in order to offer nothing to nation

After spending the day celebrating Mardi Gras, I took a peek at Obama's address to Congress and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's response for the GOP.

Obama's speech was incredible, especially toward the end. Weaving the 'quitters' thing in from the story about the girl from South Carolina? Just beautiful.



Jindal's speech?

Ouch. He's getting put through the paces in the media for his creepy body language and pipsqueak delivery - and rightly so. He was horrendous. Absolutely awful.

To a certain extent you have to put it in context. I mean, what's the GOP response supposed to be after a 52 minute operatic masterpiece by a popular, pro-active commander-in-chief? No Republican in the nation would have been capable of saying anything remotely inspiring in that situation. Not one. That is a function several things - the GOP personality vacuum, the deserved unpopularity of the GOP brand for their 95% culpability in fostering our current dire circumstances, and the overall GOP strategic vision of opposing every good idea of the new President while offering no alternatives - but certainly you'd expect that the great last hope of the conservative fundamentalists would be able to offer something to the American people. He didn't because he couldn't - he has nothing to offer. Nor does the rest of his party. And it must begin crystallizing for conservatives of all stripes that they're going to have to radically alter their political priorities and target coalitions if they're ever to be seen as fit for national power ever again.

Here is a video of Governor Jindal's speech:




Conservative pundit David Brooks gets this:




But let's truly evaluate the lack of substance by looking at the transcript of the speech itself. It wasn't just the meek voice with which Jindal delivered them, it was the words themselves - and what they mean in juxtaposition to Obama's ambitious plans to make America a greater nation.

Jindal's speech lasts just over 2000 words. He doesn't discuss a single substantive policy until he's about 800 words in. He spends the beginning part of the speech introducing his own personal story as the son of immigrants from India. He makes some feint acknowledgment of the need for bipartisanship. And he inexplicably highlights a generic disposition against "government" by telling the story of the time that Republican President George W. Bush's pathetic administration failed to respond to Hurricane Katrina.

All anecdotes and platitudes that rang hollow.

Then he finally gets into a real-world issue by railing against the recently passed stimulus bill - the one that promises to invest in communities, create jobs, and lower taxes in the midst of an economic crisis. Calling the President's do-something approach "irresponsible," Jindal highlights his "different approach" in Louisiana and tosses out his ideas for repairing our economy.

Since I became governor, we cut more than 250 earmarks from our state budget. And to create jobs for our citizens, we cut taxes six times - including the largest income tax cut in the history of our state. We passed those tax cuts with bipartisan majorities. Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences, and worked together to make sure our people could keep more of what they earn. If it can be done in Baton Rouge, surely it can be done in Washington, DC.

To strengthen our economy, we need urgent action to keep energy prices down. All of us remember what it felt like to pay $4 at the pump - and unless we act now, those prices will return. To stop that from happening, we need to increase conservation ... increase energy efficiency ... increase the use of alternative and renewable fuels ... increase our use of nuclear power - and increase drilling for oil and gas here at home. We believe that Americans can do anything - and if we unleash the innovative spirit of our citizens, we can achieve energy independence.

To strengthen our economy, we also need to address the crisis in health care. Republicans believe in a simple principle: No American should have to worry about losing their health coverage - period. We stand for universal access to affordable health care coverage. We oppose universal government-run health care. Health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients - not by government bureaucrats. We believe Americans can do anything - and if we put aside partisan politics and work together, we can make our system of private medicine affordable and accessible for every one of our citizens.

To strengthen our economy, we also need to make sure every child in America gets the best possible education. After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system - opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice. We believe that, with the proper education, the children of America can do anything. And it should not take a devastating storm to bring this kind of innovation to education in our country.

To strengthen our economy, we must promote confidence in America by ensuring ours is the most ethical and transparent system in the world. In my home state, there used to be saying: At any given time, half of Louisiana is under water - and the other half is under indictment. No one says that anymore. Last year, we passed some of the strongest ethics laws in the nation - and today, Louisiana has turned her back on the corruption of the past. We need to bring transparency to Washington, DC - so we can rid our Capitol of corruption ... and ensure we never see the passage of another trillion dollar spending bill that Congress has not even read and the American people haven't even seen.

First, he highlights some cursory reductions in earmark spending and his deficit-fanning tax cuts. That's fine.

Then he prioritizes an interesting plan to cut energy costs. Whereas Obama wants to invest in weatherization, renewable and alternative energy, and conservation, Bobby Jindal also indicates a willingness to invest in energy independence. The difference is that Barack Obama just passed a stimulus bill - the one that Jindal vehemently opposes - that would specifically invest in renewable energy research and home weatherization programs. Jindal cites the high gas prices that no longer exist due to this crippling recession as evidence that we need to provide more giveaways to oil and gas companies for more offshore drilling.

Next, Jindal addresses healthcare accessibility. This was a big part of Obama's speech. The President has promised that healthcare reform will be a priority for this year, because access to healthcare is a human right and because the rising cost of care is kneecapping small businesses. Jindal is light on the details himself, saying only that he opposes a single-payer state system. While I believe in single-payer myself, it is seemingly certain that the Obama plan for universal healthcare will be a public-private partnership. So not much substance from the GOP here.

Then he highlights his record on education policy - I'll get to this later.

Jindal closes the policy portion of the speech by calling for ethics and transparency in Washington, which is kind of silly given the strident standards that President Obama imposed immediately upon taking office and absolutely dumbfounding given the unabashed corruption epidemic within Bush's Republican administration and the GOP Congress.

The rest of the speech is a half-assed mea culpa for the GOP in which he pledges that his party will regain the trust of the nation.

How about some actual policies and ideas?

--

Here is what Jindal said about education:

To strengthen our economy, we also need to make sure every child in America gets the best possible education. After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system - opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice. We believe that, with the proper education, the children of America can do anything. And it should not take a devastating storm to bring this kind of innovation to education in our country.

This is, simply put, a total distortion of not just of what is going on in New Orleans schools but also his own role in implementing the policies he highlights. He does this all in once sentence somehow.

"We reinvented the New Orleans school system..."

By this I believe he's referring to the effective dissolution of the Orleans Parish School Board and the creation of the state-run Recovery School District to take temporary receivership of public school management in New Orleans after Katrina. For one, the decision was made and implemented before Jindal was governor. In fact, it was former governor Kathleen Blanco who created the RSD, hired Paul Pastorek to head the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and brought in Paul Vallas to manage the RSD itself. For two, nobody aside from the cheerleaders from within the system's administration is anywhere close to declaring any kind of victory in what is an ongoing and contentious experiment.

"...opening up dozens of new charter schools..."

It is true that the RSD has outsourced the management of many schools to charter organizations (also under Governor Blanco, not Jindal). But the sentence might be misinterpreted in indicate that the school system in New Orleans is back online. In fact, the long-term RSD plan is to shutter schools.

The reality is that school facilities in New Orleans are in horrible disrepair. While the RSD's facilities master plan will bring some new schools and renovations online within the next few years, GOP opposition to the stimulus actually killed school building money that would have accelerated school facilities construction in New Orleans in a real and measurable way.

The students at George Washington Carver High School in the 9th Ward still attend class in temporary FEMA-issued portable units behind chain-link fences in bright orange uniforms.

Meanwhile, this is the state of the Morris FX Jeff school in Mid City:



This picture is from over a year ago when neighbors organized to get this school repaired by the RSD, but I can assure you that the building looked the same or worse when I walked past it on Saturday on my way to the Endymion parade. This is precisely the type of building that could have been renovated had Jindal and other GOP "leaders" not been so petulant in reaction to a stimulus bill that promised to actually help people and communities around the country. And this wild post-disaster public education experiment is Bobby Jindal's crowning achievement in education policy?

"...new scholarship program..."

This part is true. Some local Democratic legislators sold out and capitulated on a school voucher program that diverts public resources away from needy public schools. But he can this one if he wants.

The bottom line is that I don't think Bobby Jindal wants to spend too much time touting his record on education. I haven't even mentioned his enthusiastic endorsement of teaching creationism in science classes.

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I've noticed how the GOP stars have been aligning for Bobby Jindal's ascendancy to a roll as a national leader of the Party. But all that was predicated on their belief that he was capable of showing Americans that Republicans had some sort of practical vision, some policy ideas that could maybe resonate down the road when political conditions improve. Looks like they could be heading back to the drawing board on that one.

Vouchers Suck

Booooooooooo!

OPSB Votes Down Collective Bargaining

Yesterday, the lame-duck OPSB voted to reject a new contract with the teacher's union.

Fahrenholtz, who had said all along that he would vote no, said, "It really needed to be addressed by the incoming board."

Really?

No similar crisis of conscience when it came to approving the school facilities master plan as a lame duck, however.

I wanted the board to pass the contract. The teacher was often seen as an impediment to progress but it's not like this new agreement is some stone-aged relic:

The contract proposal sought to give teachers a say in curriculum and professional development through an existing joint task force; to give teachers the right to expunge certain unflattering material from their personnel files after three years; and to allow union representatives time during the school day to allow them to handle school issues without interfering with instruction.

That seems pretty reasonable to me.

But I actually do agree with Jimmy Fahrenholtz that it's a matter that should be taken up by the new democratically elected school board. I just wish he felt the same way about his vote on the school facilities master plan.

And I also wish we'd picked a better incoming school board. It is highly unlikely that the issue of collective bargaining for teachers will be revisited by the new board. I believe that the current board would have voted to approve the contract had we not selected a new board that campaigned so openly against the teacher's union.

Retroactive Immunity for Reckless Charterization

This is why the pilot schools model is better than what was force fed to this city like it was the end all be all of education reform policy.

Key words: oversight, accountability

Isn't that exactly why the educational reform movement got started in the first place?


Bonus: The local chapter of the teacher's union is toothless and pathetic. Seems to me that they've got to secure a date for the restoration of collective bargaining rights, even if they have to compromise on the length of the wait.

RSD and Alternative Schools

Some rare praise from WCBF for the RSD for this new commitment to expand support for alternative schools for our city's most troubled kids. The only issue I'd point out is that Mr. Vallas is merely expressing a desire to expand alternative programs. I'd like to see it for real, in the budget.

“They are used to getting attention for negative things,” he said. “We turn that culture around. Now they are getting attention when they do something positive. That really makes a difference in their lives at school and at home.”

Students kicked out of other schools, for offenses such as throwing knives or carrying marijuana, find new life through the RSD’s alternative program. It takes in students from every school in the area regardless of district affiliation, Haggen said.

“We are unique because we have the only judicial liaison in the area. So when kids are sent through the judicial system, they come to us,” he said.

It's important stuff.

--

And indeed Paul Vallas is negotiating a one year contract extension at the RSD. He had been expected to leave after this school year. In spite of all my criticisms, there is something to be said for continuity. I can only hope it manifests underneath as real life classroom stability.

**To Suggest

...That the charters of New Orleans are anything close to "proven" is beyond ludicrous. In the hours since Senator McCain has said this, I've spoken to New Orleans educational sources and there was laughter down the line. Senator McCain is way way off base on this one.

**

The New OPSB

Leigh breaks down the T-P's profile of the new OPSB we just elected.

I'm not particularly enthused, myself. I support the right to collective bargaining and believe it should be restored immediately. I agree that it needs to be easier to fire ineffective teachers, but that's something that will likely result from negotiation. Teachers need to be able to work together to obtain the salaries and benefits they deserve as the backbone of our community and they need to be able to protect themselves from administrative witch hunts that often result from unwelcome whistle-blowing.

I believe that Woody Koppel is the worst of the bunch and am so ticked off that district 6 voters chose him over the extremely qualified Percy Marchand, who has been informed, engaged, and willing to take brave stands throughout this whole master plan process. Big mistake, district six. Big mistake.

Just Moving Money Around?

I don't know if anyone else noticed this small blurb in Monday's very thin Times-Pic metro section in the regular "Higher Education Notes" segment that begs.

Apparently, ExxonMobil has awarded a grant to the Cowen Institute to develop college prep courses at four New Orleans public schools.

Let me start out by applauding the stated commitment to high level college preparatory classes at our schools. I gleaned some more info from the Tulane press release about the program. They'll be starting AP courses, which is fabulous. Not only did AP level courses prepare me for collegiate academia, but the university credits I received for succeeding in those courses allowed me finish my senior year at Tulane as a part time student, saving my family and I thousands of dollars in tuition costs.

But wait just a minute, y'all.

Before we go ahead and canonize ExxonMobil and the Cowen Institute, there might be some lines to read between. I know, I know. Very unexpected.

From the T-P blurb:

John McDonogh High School, L.E. Rabouin Career Magnet School and O. Perry Walker Senior High School already have been selected to participate. A fourth school is expected to be picked this month.

The grant, announced Thursday, will set up an advanced-placement training and incentive program at each school to help students prepare for higher education.

This is a pilot program, which is expected to develop during the next five years.

One minor detail I noticed was that not one of these three high schools survive past Phase II of the school facilities master plan. The buildings are scheduled to be shuttered and "landbanked," with no replacement construction. O.P. Walker is listed in the master plan as closing in 2016 and John McDonough will be 86'd in 2014.

L. E. Rabouin is a Phase I closure. It will be shelved, according to the school facilities master plan, in 2012.

Thus, ExxonMobil and the Cowen Institute will spend over a million bucks implementing pilot programs that won't be given a chance to become permanent since the host schools are being written out of existence. Not only that but even if we were to be most charitable and start the five year implementation timeline at this very moment, Rabouin will be closed in year four of the grant.

What is up with that? Why are we pulling the rug out from under these critical academic efforts by shutting down these schools regardless of the success of the programs hosted within?

My calls to the Tulane PR people and to the Cowen Institute for comment and/or clarification were not returned.

P.S. This petition effort helped result in a short extension of the public comment period. We have ten more days in which to lobby OPSB and BESE. Write your school board member.

Transparent Bias by Times-Picayune Editors [Updated]

I was looking forward to see how Darran Simon's recap of yesterday's contentious hearing at City Hall in today's paper.

I found it, eventually.

Hidden all the way at the bottom of page B-1.

School-closing plan fuels council anxiety

I don't think I'm just too close to the story when I say that the upcoming vote on the facilities master plan represents the most important event involving public schools since Katrina, or at least since the decision to create the Recovery School District itself. The plan will determine the capacity of New Orleans' public school system for decades. Nobody disputes that. Nobody disputes that funding does not exist for anything beyond the first phase ending in 2013. Nobody disputes that 'landbanked' schools will likely mean demolition and/or resale. Nobody disputes that 'landbanking' is certainly synonymous with closure, even if planners allude to maybe possibly some of the closed schools one day perhaps being considered to be brought back as schools through third party operators.

Those are facts, those are the stakes. Read the article and see for yourself.

Yet, the Times-Picayune determined that this was not a top story today. In fact, the Times-Picayune made the decision that this wasn't even the top education story today. On the front cover of this morning's paper was another story about the RSD, this one about the possibility that four more schools may be turned over to charter operators. Now I'm not arguing that this doesn't merit coverage, as there are certainly people critical of the operator selection process and the ubiquitous involvement of Steven Bingler's sister-in-law's New Schools New Orleans in anything involving charter schools. But is this story nearly as important as the poorly-conceived master plan for school closure?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. It's not even close.

But let's argue for a moment that both stories are important and deserve front cover attention. The T-P could have included both stories, the one about charterization and the other about school closures, but then they would have had to bounce this life-changer that was included amongst the day's top stories instead:

Groom gets feds to snap to attention

That breaking news headline is in regard to some asshole who wore a Navy uniform to his wedding even though he'd never served. Something to note in the third hour of your midday talk radio program? MAYBE. Something for the front page of a major metropolitan newspaper on a day where the city's public school system teeters on the brink of catastrophic planning? HELL NO.

Really bad, Times-Picayune. Really bad.

--

I'd also like to challenge an assertion by Paul Vallas included at the bottom of the closure article:

Vallas pointed out that only one existing occupied building -- Audubon extension -- is scheduled to be closed in phase one.

That's simply false. Even if Mr. Vallas is trying to make the point that all of the currently-occupied schools to be lanbanked under Phase 1 won't close until the end of the phase, he's still making a false claim. Phase I of the master plan runs from 2008-2013.

Let me count them all for you.

(AND REMEMBER, THESE SCHOOLS ARE CURRENTLY OCCUPIED)

Elementary Schools - from page 90 of the official master plan.

McDonogh 07 - 2012
NO Free School - 2012
Arthur Ashe - 2012
Audobon Extension - 2012
McDonogh 28 - 2012
Dibert - 2012

High Schools - from page 94

Rabouin - 2012
McMain - 2012
Douglass- 2011

Vallas is right if he really meant that Audubon extension will be the first to be closed within phase 1 in 2010, but the currently operating Frederick Douglass High School will close soon after, in 2011. The reality is, however, that FDHS could close after this school year if doing so strikes the fancy of the school district. They are under no legal obligation to keep the school in operation and in fact, had not decided to keep the building open for this year until last May or June.


UPDATE:

But perhaps nothing reflects the editorial bias of the Times-Picayune better than their absolutely ridiculous endorsements for this Saturday's Orleans Parish School Board Race. They pick the conservative establishment choice in every instance such a choice is available. Woody Koppel over Percy Marchand? You've got to be kidding me. Brett Bonin over either Amy LaFont or Davin Boldissar? A bad joke. Seth Bloom over Avis Brock? Totally ill-informed.

The Times-Picayune pretty much endorses the most conservative Board possible, the whitest Board possible, the most anti-union Board possible, the most pro-master plan Board possible.

Percy Marchand in District 6 and Amy Lafont or Davin Boldissar in District 3 are the only OPSB candidates that have taken the time to inform themselves about the consequences of this master plan document and have been brave enough to speak out forcefully with their concerns. Woody Koppel and Brett Bonin are opportunistic insiders looking to climb the ladder. It is imperative that they be defeated.

Times-Picayune editorial board: You're hurting the recovery of this city.

Absolutely infuriating!

Schools Master Plan Hearing at City Council

According to Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, today's crowd was likely the largest to have ever attended an council education committee hearing. There was indeed pretty substantial turnout, considering the relative lack of attention called to the event and the fact that it was called at 10 AM on a Wednesday.

Comment was 100% in opposition of the master plan and came from groups representing schools from all over the city. Councilwomen Head and Hedge-Morrell each expressed pointed criticisms of their own.

State Senator Cheryl Gray came to speak out against the closure of schools in her district. Our BESE representative Louella Givens came to speak out as well, and introduced her BESE colleague who was also in attendance. This other person mostly stood awkwardly on the side of the room. His name is James Garvey and he recently refused to condemn LaBruzzo's eugenics bill to the Times-Picayune. (Just so you know)

Unfortunately, the public was grouped by school affiliation so educational advocates wishing to express concerns with the very structure of the master plan, including OPSB candidates Percy Marchand and Amy LaFont had to wait until the end of the hearing, by which point the room was largely empty.

The deadline for the public comment period remains midnight tonight. OPSB President Torin Sanders went on the record pledging to introduce a motion at tomorrow's OPSB meeting that would allow for more public comment, but he is under no legal or political obligation to do so, as he is not running for reelection.

Paul Vallas was there today and repeatedly made the ridiculous claim that Congress would pull funding for New Orleans schools if this were not approved quickly. But remember that the master plan was delayed for months by the consultant planners themselves.

(Also, I'd always thought that Vallas was not really involved in the master planning process, that this was Pastorek's thing. Pastorek was not present. Steven Bingler, the man hired to put together the master plan did not speak.)

Ultimately, there was no resolution of any particular grievance - either with the master plan or with the voting timeline.

So it appears as though the rubber stamp freight train remains on schedule.

That's sad. This is a bad document.

Independent Group Calls School Facilities Master Plan "Troubling"

So all the regular readers of this blog know very well where I stand on the school facilities master plan. I've been pushing this petition to extend the deadline for public comment on the master plan because the OPSB appears ready to rubber stamp the document when we know that some of them have not even read it. If you haven't, you should go sign that petition.

But maybe you're reluctant. Maybe you're saying to yourself,"That Eli is so smart and good looking. The analysis at his blog is so wise and interesting to read. But I still don't know if I should sign that petition or weigh in on the schools master plan. I don't know enough about it to know if he knows enough about it."

Maybe you'd be more convinced if my criticisms were buttressed by something a little bit more independent think tank-y. If that's the case, I urge you to see what is said in a brief from the non-profit and non-partisan Bureau of Governmental Research.

First, they agree that the consequences of accepting the document are wide-ranging and far-reaching:

If adopted, it will set the course for the development of New Orleans public schools for decades to come. It will guide decisions as to which schools are closed, which are built or renovated, and when and where.

Then, they break it down, emphasis mine:

The catch is that implementation depends on funding, and there are solid prospects only for Phase I, which has a price tag of $675 million. School officials estimate that they can cobble together between $100 million and $200 million for Phase II. But that leaves a gap of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion for the remainder of the plan.

The Plan makes no assessment of whether this gap can realistically be funded. The section on finances merely provides a brief discussion of possible funding mechanisms. These include general obligation bonds, local property taxes, local sales taxes, sharing of facilities, state funds, federal funds, lease-purchase arrangements, sales of assets and public-private partnerships. The Plan does not provide revenue estimates for these sources, nor does it discuss the likelihood that they will materialize. School officials and planners confirmed that the planning process did not attempt to address these issues. An assessment of the financing for Phases II through VI was outside the scope of the Plan.

This is troubling. Facilities planning without a realistic assessment of financial resources for these phases is at best an exercise in visioning. At worst, it projects the illusion that all students will have access to world class schools. But, according to school officials, only half of the projected student population would have such facilities if Phase I alone were funded. The other half would not.

How does that sound for your school system? One half has while other half does not? Sounds exactly like the type of new New Orleans we all envisioned doesn't it?

So it's very serious. This is why you and all your friends should come down to City Hall tomorrow morning at 10 AM to hear testimony on the school facilities master plan. It is the public's last opportunity to provide comment on the document - which is why this petition needs to get much thicker over the next 12-18 hours. SIGN IT!

SIGN THE PETITION: EXTEND THE FACILITIES MASTER PLAN PUBLIC COMMENT DEADLINE

A petition is now online to extend the public comments period on the school facilities master plan to January. I can't tell you how critical this is.

Go here to sign it.

The school facilities master plan will guide the capacity of this city's public education institutions for decades to come. It was poorly conceived to begin with and is structurally flawed now that it has been 'completed.'

Go here to sign it.

As of this moment, the Orleans Parish School Board and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education are scheduled to vote on the master plan within days though the plan was released in the midst of Gustav panic and is close to 2000 pages. The case for extension of the public comment deadline based on the insufficient amount of time the public has had to review and provide comment would be plenty compelling by itself. Yet, disturbingly, we've learned that some members of the Orleans Parish School Board, who are, and I can't stress this enough, directly responsible for the approval or rejection of an absolutely critical guiding master plan, HAVE NOT READ IT THEMSELVES.

Go here to sign it.

Over half of the members of the current school board are lame ducks, some of whom may have already checked out: they are disengaged from what is going on but are still prepared to vote on a 1.8 billion dollar blueprint that they may not even have read.

Go here to sign it.

Orleans Parish voters will elect a new school board on October 4th and it is they who should be making any decisions on the master plan.

Go here to sign it.

Thus, it is of urgent importance for anyone and everyone that cares about either education, democratic processes, or both go HERE to sign the petition to extend the public comments deadline. Currently there is a target of 1000 signatures. I know that we can meet the target and I think we can do it quickly.

Go here to sign it.

Master Plan Truths

NOW IS THE TIME TO DIG IN


The School Facilities Master Plan for Orleans Parish is a document designed by the private planning partnership between Concordia and Parsons. It, if adopted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), will represent the blueprint guiding the future capacity of public schools as an institution for learning in New Orleans.

- Though misleadingly billed as a "building boom" on occasion, the facilities master plan, in the word of planners, "landbanks" over 60 schools, which means that the schools will be demolished or shuttered indefinitely. Though the master plan has a rough view of schools that may be eligible for phase two construction, because there is no funding for anything beyond phase one, there is no timeline for reopening of any schools that do not receive the phase one designation.

- Some of the schools slated to be landbanked are not amongst those currently too badly damaged to be occupied by students. In fact, according to Francine Stock's incredibly useful map of the schools slated for landbanking, there are ten high school facilities currently open and serving children slated for closure by 2013. Just one of the ten academic programs functioning within those buildings is being promised relocation to another neighborhood. Those schools include such storied cultural intuitions as Carver, Douglass, O.P. Walker, Karr, Schwartz, McMain, Abramson, Rabouin, Cohen, and John McDonogh.

- Though these institutions have had their share of academic challenges, perhaps none has been more difficult to confront than those related to the traumas related to Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent displacements and relocation. These community anchors and the human beings serving inside represent a stabilizing force for recovering areas of the city. Rather than promoting stability and continuity within these already-open bridges to healing, the master plan pulls the rug out from under the talented administrators striving to institute "school reform" in the here and now. What now is the incentive for principals and teachers to implement a long term academic culture when the district is sending the message that their school programs are being written out of existence? After all that work to eliminate the baby-sitter service mentality that had set in at many schools, principals and teachers are essentially being informed that the programs they're working so hard to implement are actually themselves nothing more than placeholders for yet another academic sweep in 2013.

- Rather than embracing the urbanity of our community, the acreage requirements that inform the closure of many schools located in dense neighborhoods impose an arbitrary suburban-style benchmark that actually has no real correlation with academic performance. This design preference of Concordia-Parsons forces the school district to waste precious time and money negotiating land acquisitions and swap transactions when there are buildings open right now that could be renovated at prices cheaper than building new. Further, the suburbanized campus vision and the neighborhood school closures that the policy necessitates flies in the face of national trends predicting a re-migration to cities and the best academic research on long term environmental benefits of 're-densification' of urban cores spread thin during white flight's asphalt boom.

-Far from "agnostic in respect to operator," the facilities master plan provides no path to funding for any construction beyond phase one and explicitly raises the specter that future school capacity expansion could be left to private operators.


Readers, please treat this as a living blog post to be modified in a collaborative fashion. This is meant to represent a starting point for criticism of the facilities master plan. Please tack on additional concerns or edit those that I've opened with to be more cogent frames. By boiling down the repercussions of this master plan, we will be equipped with a helpful starting point from which to engage uninformed neighbors and confront misinformed adversaries.

So How Many Master Plan Phases Do We Have Funding For?

Please, please, please read Sarah Carr's piece that profiles the proud history of Frederick Douglass High School on St. Claude Avenue. Douglass faces certain closure under the school facilities master plan.

How many snake oil salesmen have to come storming into town before we recognize the pattern?

Installed about eight years ago, the pipes might have brought cool air to the once-magnificent, now-decayed auditorium, but the school system never found the money to complete the second phase of the project.

The unfinished effort is emblematic of scores of well-meaning attempts to breathe life into the struggling academic program in recent years. Officials have repeatedly launched reform efforts, only to abandon them before they effect lasting change.

And there are scores of other unfinished projects, even if we're limiting our discussion to the facility itself. I'm lucky enough to have gone on a tour of the building and despite the appearance of decay, it is actually quite beautiful - not so far behind most other urban schools I've ever seen. The problem has been that on countless projects both before and after the storm, crews sent out to install things like light fixtures, intercoms, air conditioning systems, and ceiling tiles don't finish the jobs. They'll do things like only connect intercoms to some parts of the building or install outdoor light fixtures but not supply replacement light bulbs. Or as Ms. Carr reports, they'll install AC pipes but no AC unit.

Teachers, principals, students, parents, and community stakeholders operated under this neglect for years and years believing that - if they could just be allowed the stability and continuity to implement a strong academic program, if they could get the confidence and support of the school board, if they could just get basic facility maintenance - they'd be able to help our children succeed.

School communities like Frederick Douglass never quit on the kids. Instead, the city quit on the school communities. How else could a nationally acclaimed writing program like Students at the Center be discouraged from returning to Douglass? Instead, Paul Vallas and the RSD are implementing an experimental "theme" school at Douglass, a police academy, for the next year before the facility will likely be shuttered.

That's not change, it's more of the same failed slash and burn policy.

When you hire visionary principles who are well qualified and highly motivated and provide them a core of career teachers committed to the program, you can slowly but surely implement a healthy learning environment, a school culture - but only if you allow that community the stability, continuity, and basic resources necessary for parents and students to buy in.

When the district threatens schools with closure, castrates maintenance budgets, and constantly shuffles principals in and out, it is only natural for a school's academic and cultural fabric to unravel.

The RSD is sitting on $1.8 billion with the promise of a few "21st century schools" to replace the scores upon scores we'll be "landbanking" for other purposes.

Amongst other things, it's installing the pipes without the units. To play with Sarah Carr's characterization of the history of Douglass, it's yet another "launched reform effort" scheduled to be "abandoned before it effects lasting change."

'Scheduled' in the sentence above is my word and I choose it for a few reasons. First, in the case of Douglass, the brand new experimental police academy program is literally already being threatened with extinction after this school year (not that I care for that experiment anyway) AND the Douglass building is slated to be closed. Second, in more general terms, there is NO MONEY for any new facilities construction projects after the completion of the first phase of the master plan in 2013.

It is very easy to anticipate that this city may need facilities expansion after 2013. First, it is almost impossible to forecast the local and national trends that may contribute to population growth accurately enough to inform binding policy. Second, Concordia-Parsons has drawn up phases 2 through 5 in the master plan, admitting that phase 1 will drain every last cent but not finish the job. Spending every last penny to do half the job? Sounds sadly familiar, no?

BESE and the OPSB are seriously considering approval for the school facilities master plan. At a time when a traumatized community of children badly needs continuity and stability from their schools, we may be about to witness the blind rubber stamping of another poorly constructed, half funded, and experimental upheaval. The master plan abandons the neighborhood school model at the high school level in favor of a system that forces kids into the unfortunately sometimes hostile territory of a neighboring ward. Ask any teacher working in the RSD about the prevalence of geographic conflict but I'm sure you don't have to.

I don't have the stomach to continue this same pattern of half-assed and poorly-informed revolution followed by yet another yawning retreat in which nobody is held accountable.

Are people as mad about this as I am?

--

RELATED:

In May, I looked at a small piece of the Parsons Corp. preliminary site assessment of Frederick Douglass High School and compared it to the school as it stood.

Liprap Leigh recaps Thursday's community testimony in front of the OPSB.

Did you know that OPSB member Jimmy Fahrenholtz, who expressed his "100% approval" for the master plan without having even read it, didn't bother to show up? He's not credible to vote on this. A lot of people tell me he's a good guy at heart but he's got no business making such a critical decision for this community if he's going to be so close minded as to not even read the document and not even pay lip service to divergent opinion. It violates public trust. We know that he is close to Steven Bingler's sister-in-law via social network and campaign contribution.

How pathetic is it that none, NOT ONE, of the OPSB members that did bother to attend was engaged enough to ask a question of the planners?

Here is the current schedule for regional master plan comment opportunities as hosted by individual OPSB members in their home districts. Two of them were today. The big event is the hearing at City Council on October 1st.

I'm still looking into how to support SOSNola's petition to extend the public comment period to January, lemme get back witcha on that.

Widespread Discontent at OPSB Hearing, Are They Paying Attention?

Because I was unable to attend this particular OPSB-sponsored public hearing on the school facilities master plan, I am relying on second-hand accounts until I can get a hold of the video.

One thing I'm trying to pin down is who did and did not bother to show up from amongst the sitting members of the OPSB. As of right now, I have reason to believe that there were one or two no-shows. Landrieu, Anderson, Sanders, Moran, and Cade appear to have been there for sure.

Additionally, I'm trying to find out who did and did not show up from amongst the many candidates vying to replace the current board and who came prepared with questions and comments.

Listen, I don't care if what you think about the master plan but it is utterly inappropriate for OPSB members to lock us into a 30-50 year master plan without listening to the concerns of citizens and independent experts. There was perfect attendance when Concordia-Parsons presented the master plan. Wouldn't it make sense to hear something other than the talking points of the hired firms?

Ideally, you'd have OPSB members avidly engaged in the hearing: asking their own questions of Concordia-Parsions, following up on concerns raised by community stakeholders, demanding clarification on waffling statements. This, regardless of attendance, did not happen.

According to witness accounts, not one sitting member of the OPSB asked a question. I'll confirm this personally upon viewing the instant replay.

And it's not as if there were no concerns voiced by the community. In fact, the crowd was very vocal about their reservations. The Times-Pic confirms this.

The Times-Picayune also relayed that SOSNola, an education advocacy group, is beginning to circulate a petition that would extend the public comment period until the new year. This would not only ensure that citizens would have the proper time necessary to review the document but might also ensure that the disengaged lame ducks of the sitting OPSB would not have the opportunity to vote on anything binding. I twice tried to contact Save Our Schools New Orleans to inquire as to how to sign the petition and to suggest they put it online. When they get back to me, I'll get back to you.

Did you make it to the meeting last night?

Tell me what you saw.

UPDATING AS WE GO:

1. G Bitch caught a brief view from local access and live blogged it:

Sandra Reed: RE the accelerated timeline for public comment, as a resident of Central City and representative of community groups, the comment period—it takes time to understand the plan and offer a informed comments, a document of this size with this kind of technical info, regular folks need time to look at it; there was a 90-day extension for the plan, “and that was no hurricane.” Will ask, “beg if I have to” to give an extra 30 days for folks to read and decipher the–

And then I believe local access cut away to something called "Traffic Time."

Evaluating the School Facilities Master Plan: 3rd Grade

Let's highlight a key passage from the RSD's press release that accompanied the master plan presentation from Monday. Unfortunately I cannot find an electronic copy of what was handed out in the press packets so you'll just have to believe my transcription.

The blueprint proposes a period between 2012 and 2016 when currently occupied buildings could be discontinued if the recommendations are implemented. Any buildings on landbanked property that are in excess of 51% damaged will be demolished. Any historic property or other important or valuable buildings will be repurposed, including the possibility that these properties may be sold to third parties and used for another purpose. Landbanked or repurposed schools could be made available to third parties to revive for a school, if permission is secured from the appropriate governing authority.

Now I think this was a very interesting thing to include.

Why would third parties want to revive a school in a town where, theoretically, our brand new '21st century schools' would be meeting our educational needs?

And why would third party operators be reviving landbanked schools and not the public school system itself?

At each presentation that Parsons-Concordia has given thus far, Mr. Bingler has been very careful to say that the master plan "was agnostic in terms of operator," meaning that determinations about the future of certain facilities did not take into account whether or not the building was operated by the RSD, the OPSB, or a charter.

Yet the RSD's own press release already is already floating this idea of a future of privatized education, but you have it specifically tied to the master plan's Phase II - which has no funding.

Who would those third party operators be and which communities would they serve?

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A brief observation from Dr. Lance Hill of the Southern Institute for Education and Research:

Note the plan plans to demolish virtually all the open-admission public schools between St. Charles and the river: Banneker Elementary, Arthur Ashe Middle, McDonogh 7 Elementary, New Orleans Free School, and Bauduit Elementary.

The school facility demolition plan has nothing to do with flood protection. Note below that the plan is to demolish schools above sea level that have never flooded (uptown open-admission elementaries), while renovating selective admission schools like Franklin and Lusher that are below sea level and did flood. The criteria is clearly not elevation.

That's very interesting because "flood protection" is the refrain I constantly hear as a justification for withholding public dollars from certain neighborhoods in general terms.


UPDATE:

From loyal reader and blogger Alli (emphasis a combination of hers and mine):

"...Agnostic in terms of operator" and "third party operators" sounds like it's in reference to this article from the NYT over the weekend:

The theorist who has had the most influence over Pastorek is Paul T. Hill, who runs a research group at the University of Washington called the Center on Reinventing Public Education. In September 2005, while much of New Orleans was still submerged, Hill published an article in Education Week that urged state and federal officials and philanthropic foundations to resist the temptation simply to send emergency aid to whatever programs seemed most in need. "The circumstances call for a coherent strategy, not just a round of do-gooding," he wrote. "Don't spend money rebuilding the old district structure."

In 2000, in a book titled "It Takes a City," Hill and two other researchers laid out a new architecture for urban school reform that they called the Diverse Providers Strategy. Under this model, local school boards wouldn't run a school system hierarchically, the way they usually did; instead, they would oversee a "portfolio" of schools, some run directly by the board and many run on contract by nonprofits, universities or private companies. Schools would receive money on a per-student basis, and principals could then use that money to staff their schools as they liked and pay for whatever instructional methods they chose. Each school would negotiate salaries and work rules directly with its teachers. The system's small central office would be responsible only for oversight, though it would have considerable power to hold principals accountable: schools that didn't produce results would be closed, and successful schools would be imitated and replicated.

It is this model that Pastorek and Vallas have adapted for New Orleans. Pastorek says that he wants the state's role to be that of a "harvester of high-quality schools" in the city — nurturing promising ones and weeding out failing ones. "If schools run into trouble, you support them," Pastorek said. "But if they're still failing after you support them, then you pull the plug and bring in a new provider or an experienced provider. Over a period of 5 or 6 years, 10 at the most, we'll have nothing but high-quality operators in our city."

Diverse Providers: Because New Orleans Has Never Had Any Problems With Contracts, Ever.

Wait, when has New Orleans ever had trouble with private contracting? What is Alli talking about?

Jimmy Fahrenholtz Sure Does Read Fast

OPSB member and perpetual candidate Jimmy Fahrenholtz was presented the school facilities master plan at a regular Orleans Parish School Board meeting this evening at McDonough 35 High School.

After looking it over for no more than the length of the meeting he proudly proclaimed to the Times-Picayune that he is "100 percent in support of the master plan."

That's rich because it was Jimmy Fahrenholtz who cut short Una Anderson's surprisingly strident questions regarding high school distribution uptown supposedly because tonight's meeting was only to be about determining procedure, not about expressing reservation or support.

While Mr. Fahrenholtz clearly isn't interested in hearing any public concern regarding the master plan or displaying any kind of his own healthy skepticism before taking one side over another, you'd still think he'd at least have the respect to at least sleep on the damn thing before expressing his undying enthusiasm.

Just for the sake of everyone's memory, let us recall that Jimmy Fahrenholtz is a frequent violator of campaign finance law and was very recently barred from running for Congress in District 2 due to outstanding penalties levied by the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Because those fines were levied as a result of his failure to follow the law during his race for Orleans Parish School Board, he has no business leading any kind of debate on the facilities master plan and his opinion shouldn't really be printed in the paper without the context I've provided here.

Let me mention that I can't seem to find where Mr. Fahrenholtz has filed a financial disclosure report since the storm. Also, I'll say that Steven Bingler's sister-in-law Sarah Usdin, a big education policy stakeholder in her own right, contributed to Mr. Fahrenholtz's 2004 race for OPSB. Also when Ms. Usdin was named to the Gambit's 2004 40 under 40, Fahrenholtz claims that he'd "trust her to back me up in a knife fight."

Now this simple contribution from four years ago, nor Mr. Fahrenholtz's closeness to members of the Bingler family would be a major problem except that, again, Mr. Fahrenholtz just pledged 100% approval for a plan he barely had a chance to look over.

Mr. Fahrenholtz should be excused from all debate related to the master plan and should also abstain from voting on any related binding or nonbinding recommendations. If he does not, the OPSB will have a hard time credibly passing judgment on this critical matter, particularly as voters elect replacements potentially poised to trumpet entirely different views.