In 2005, Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, and with it, the New Orleans school system.  Seventy-five percent of their schools were closed and students were now schooling in Texas or areas where they fled the devastation.  Some schools on high ground remained open following the hurricane, but it would be a year before others reopened for returning students.

As New Orleans began to come to its senses following the hurricane, the state of Louisiana lost theirs and turned around and decimated the New Orleans school system.  Like an Alice Cooper song, school as they knew it was out for ever.  No more teachers, no more principals, no more school boards, and no more teacher’s union.  The system was handed over to private interests that turned it all into a charter school garden of good and evil.  Federal money and philanthropic monies and interests poured into New Orleans as if it were under a Bourbon Street tap.  Things looked good, before they didn’t.

As schools reopened, minds opened and brought forth new strategies in education.  Returning students were placed in courses based on readiness levels, not age.  Schools were free to choose what readiness tests they wished their students to take.   New teachers, mostly Teach for America teachers brought in by charter operators after the firing of the system’s previous teachers, were teaching for skill recovery rather than skill adoption (and probably for skill building for themselves), which would resume after the reteaching of past materials.

Things went well in New Orleans schools for a while.  Before Katrina, while there were some schools which ranked highly on state lists, the overall system was a failing one.  Following Katrina, and with the building of the new privatization model, charter schools were educating 80% of the student population and graduation rates were up from 54% in 2004 to 73% in 2014.  The percentage of students on grade level in grades 3-11 rose from 25% in 2000 to 68% in 2015.  Folks were saying that New Orleans was rebuilding itself better than it was before Katrina.  What was happening was that as more and more low performing schools were handed over to the charters, performance numbers went up.  This lasted for the first few years after Katrina, but then things began to level off.  By 2016 things flat lined and the tumble downward began again.  Today in New Orleans, the school system ranks as one of the worst in the country.  The teacher’s union is answering the call of staff and slowly returning.  The Louisiana Legislature is drafting a plan for school boards to return.  Let’s send them Dr. Jim Shmerling!

Why do charter schools fail?  The idea behind charter schools was that choice and competition would improve public schools.  But choice and competition bring politics, a mix of conflicting educational ideologies, and the corruption of the almighty dollar.  With high salaried charter operators and administrators, the per pupil costs in charter schools greatly exceeds that of public schools, but the amount spent on education pales in comparison to most public schools.  This creates a system where the constant need to increase the bottom line creates the need for a constant influx of ever-increasing cash from governments and charities, robbing the public schools of even the scraps, and robbing the students of an effective education.  Fraud and fiscal mismanagement and waste have decapitated many a charter head.  Lack of skilled, experienced, and often, certified teachers, have resulted in many charters closing due to poor academics.  The lack of government oversight, the lack of a culturally responsive education system, the inadequate service of students with special needs, and the lack of a really good school newspaper, have brought down charter schools from the “hilltops of New Hampshire” to the “curvaceous slopes of California.”

  So, as acting Hartford Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez calls for an educational reawakening, as consulting companies expand their footprint in your school district, and as billionaire philanthropists cozy up to local political power, be wary.  Be wary of where the wind is blowing, be wary of the winds of privatization.