Experiments Can't Fail: Why New Orleans Will Need "Rescue" from Post-Katrina Public Education "Reforem"

Experiments Can’t Fail:

Why New Orleans Public School Children Will Need “Rescue” from Post-Katrina Recovery School District Public Education “Reform”

 

Presentation by

Tracie L. Washington, President – Louisiana Justice Institute[i]

to the

Albert Shanker Institute

September 9, 2015

Ten Years After the Deluge:

The State of Public Education in New Orleans.

 

Good afternoon and thank you for this invitation to the Conversation Series on Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education.  What an exceptional topic and space.  I want to visit with you about MY understanding of that Promise.

Just a little about me and what brought me here.  I am the product of educators.  In my family my father, mother, and maternal grandfather; and 3 aunts, 2 first cousins, and one cousin-in-law are/were educators.  I am entering my third year on faculty at Dillard University.  I get educators and the work we are inspired to do.  Prior to Katrina, I practiced employee side labor/employment law, and my docket was 75% representation of educators.  I was good.

I have written so many drafts of this presentation, trying to stay focused and not fly off topic.  It’s not been easy.  Here’s what you need to know up front.  New Orleans education reform had very little to do with educating the 90% African American student population that attended our public schools prior to Hurricane Katrina.  I’ll support this contention by giving you the facts, by the numbers.  Then, we’ll get down to the real truths.

New Orleans Public Schools – August 28, 2005

The Orleans Parish School Board operated 128 schools.  The students are the poor.  They are poor children in one of the poorest cities, and poorest states in the country.  This school system, which has been consistently underfunded and whose infrastructure if woefully neglected (crumbling) is charged with educating these children.  The district educates over 90% African-American students - a result of decades of white flight.  At 25%, the City of New Orleans has one of the highest rates of private school attendance in the country.  Prior to the storms, NOPS had been led by ten (10) superintendents in ten years; many left under controversy involving the mishandling of funds.  And prior to Katrina, there wasn’t any real political will – particularly from the Nola Confederate Gentry – to reform public schools.

Hercules, Hercules: 

It’s A Miracle – We’ve Educated These Children!  

We love a good story.  Cinderella gets her Prince.  Batman beats The Joker.  Coyote catches Roadrunner.  So why not “Broken School System Miraculously Reformed.”

Here’s the story from the Las Vegas Review Journal[1].  EDITORIAL: Public school reform bolsters post-Katrina New Orleans, Posted September 7, 2015 - 5:10pm

“The last full school year before the storm, a mere 56 percent of students in New Orleans graduated from high school, 10 points below the national average. And the majority of those who graduated tested below average in core subjects such as reading and math.

The school district was far more concerned with helping grown-ups. In 2003, the school system issued checks to 4,000 people who weren't supposed to get them and provided health benefits to 2,000 people who weren't eligible for them.

Post-Katrina, the School Board had no choice but to hand over four-fifths of the city's public school system to a new, all-charter Recovery School District. Fast-forward 10 years, and things are much different — and much better — for students in New Orleans.

At of the beginning of the 2013 school year, 76.5 percent of New Orleans students were graduating on time. Not only was this figure equal to the national average, but the city's black students were graduating at a rate 16.5 percentage points higher than their counterparts nationwide. According to a 2012 study by Tulane's Cowen Institute, ACT scores among the city's students had increased 1.2 points. The college entry rate among New Orleans public school students had gone up by 14 percentage points.”

Doesn’t that sound good?  The end, right?

Here’s What Really Happened: 

The Takeover

At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, eighty-eight (88) of the more than 120 public schools in Orleans Parish had met or exceeded the state’s requirement for adequate yearly progress. These schools were not failing. Ninety-three (93) of the schools showed academic growth. The Orleans Parish School Board was making documented progress in raising failing school scores in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind legislation prior to Hurricane Katrina. Thus, as of the 2005-06 school year, the OPSB was working towards meeting the State’s growth target.

What happened at the first OPSB meeting post-Katrina was startling to everyone.  It was September 15, 2005 and OPSB met at the State Department of Education in Baton Rouge. Immediately after the public comment period, Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education Cecil Picard, tried unsuccessfully to have a New York financial consultant replace the Acting NOPS Superintendent Ora Watson.  Picard was bent and determined to wrestle away governance of NOPS from OPSB, and when the Superintendent replacement maneuver didn’t work, Picard lobbied Governor Kathleen Blanco to change the charter law.  She acted immediately and signed an Executive Order on October 15, 2005 allowing almost any business to charter schools in New Orleans without community, faculty, or parental support. 

But that wasn’t enough.  Greed turned to gluttony.  Picard wanted immediate control.  Simply allowing charter operators to apply for a school was not the avenue paved with gold.  So he turned to his former colleagues in the state legislature, who during an unprecedented 17 day special session called 66 days after the storm, created the post-Hurricane Tsunami -- Act 35, which redefined the definition of what was a failing school.  The school performance score of 60 or below had been the standard by which schools were judged as failing.  Now, a score less than the state average of 87.4 was considered failing, but only if the school district that school was in was judged academically in crisis, a distinction that befell only the New Orleans district.  It took Picard only three (3) months; on November 30, 2005 the state took control over 102 of the 126 New Orleans public schools.

So this was the take over New Orleans public schools, and with no buildings, no students, and no money, there was no district. 

“Tell Them What You’ve Got for them Johnny”

A New School System

Here are the numbers.  NAEP 8^th grade reading and math scores don’t lie.  In 2003 Louisiana was 47^th in the nation for math.  2013, we’re still 47^th in the nation.  In 2003 Louisiana was 46^th in the nation for reading.  2013, we’re 47^th.  In 2004 the Louisiana composite ACT score was 19.8 – 48^th in the nation.  In 2015, Louisiana is still 48^th in the nation, but now the ACT composite score is lower at 19.2. 

But that’s Louisiana, not New Orleans, right?  My bad.  The Recovery School System graduation rate is last in the state with 61.1% of 72 school systems.  RSD is the drop out, push out factory, with students abandoning schools in 7^th and 8^th grade.  RSD said “no excuses, our kids will be prepped for college.”  Really?  In 2013, 79% of the RSD charter schools received a “D” or “F” as a state school performance grade.  Only 5.5% of students who actually take AP courses score high enough on the tests to get credit.  And that ACT composite index for the RSD?  In 2013 it was 16.3.  Last year it was worse – 15.7

Okay, Okay – The Experiment Failed, Right?

Nope!

I was raised by a scientist.  When Governor Kathleen Blanco indicated there would be this great experiment in New Orleans public school education, I told my Dad this experiment would fail, and I listed all the reasons – no teachers, no public input, and disaster capitalism.  My father told me – in his Professor Washington voice – “You know better.  Experiments can’t fail.  You’re either testing a hypothesis, or demonstrating a known fact.  Regardless, even if the outcome is unexpected it’s not a failure because you always learn something useful.”

He was so correct.  What happened to New Orleans’ public education system post-Katrina is not a failed experiment.  To the contrary -- these jokers (state actors & white philanthropy masking as lovers of all children African-American) demonstrated known facts:  if (1) you permanently exile 100,000 African Americans from a city, and (2) inject a corporate agenda of white political power and economic dominance, then (3) you will shift the balance of power from Black to White. 
The Promise of Public Education in New Orleans had always been that OPSB was more than just a public education system.  OPSB was a community catalyst.  It was this tremendous tool whose post civil rights era retrofit made OPSB the pipeline for black economic development and Black leadership.  New Orleans public schools did not exist solely to train people to get jobs – they existed to train citizenry and to create Black leadership. 

“Education reform” Nola-style was all about puncturing that pipeline.  Educating Black children was not the government’s priority.  Instead, what Katrina gave way to was this plan to transform the political power in the City of New Orleans and ensuring generational wealth would remain predominantly in the hands of our city’s white community.  In 2005, the system’s budget was $500million, and that money was controlled by African Americans who had the voting majority on the school board.  They were extremely powerful political figures, and played a significant role in local and state politics.  In some respects, even more powerful was the United Teachers of New Orleans.  Under famed leaders Nat LaCour, and then Brenda Mitchell, UTNO’s membership could sway elections and, therefore, the balance of power state wide. 

There was no way in Hell Kathleen Blanco was going to allow the Orleans Parish School Board, i.e., Black folk have control over $1.8 billion recovery dollars to distribute – to black folk. 

It Was All About a Racial Makeover

Better, Stronger, Whiter New Orleans

The charter schools in New Orleans are still predominately Black attended, but governance has changed.  Black veteran teachers and administrators had served in the system for decades. No longer.  We suffered through a shift in OPSB leadership, and almost all White leadership recruited to the city to run charter schools. Inexperienced Teach for a Graduate Degree teachers, who get to leave in 2-3 years debt free and with loads of beer drinking stories about their time with the natives.  This has been a large part of the racial makeover of New Orleans as a whole.

The City’s gentrification began in earnest with the schools.  Fire all the Black teachers and bring in new ones, younger, from outside the city.  The first wave of charter operators saw very little value in the city’s Black culture, and almost no respect for the community’s integrity.  “You can’t recruit cultural and historical understanding. That’s something that’s nurtured over time, inter-generationally, and it comes out of the lived experience of being part of a neighborhood. When that gets lost, not only is it tragic at a cultural level, it has implications for students’ learning. They are taught that where they come from is a liability rather than an asset.”

The Struggle Forward: 

Nothing About Us, Without Us, is For Us

We can’t let this happen again, anytime, anywhere.   When you talk to black folk in New Orleans the mantra is still, this was done to us not with us, and you can’t ignore us. It was not just about schools.  It was about the destruction of a community and a culture.  Public housing was destroyed, and very little affordable housing built in its place.  The public hospital was closed.  It was all the same agenda.  It was about remaking a city, and in the struggles forward, we have to dissect and understand what happened in New Orleans.  Don’t call it a failure.  These folks (state actors & white philanthropy masking as lovers of all children African-American) knew exactly what they were doing.  We need to learn from this.  Organize around this.

I like this quote from Howard L. Fuller:

“When black people came out of slavery, we came out with a clear understanding of the connection between education and liberation. Two groups of white people descended upon us—the missionaries and the industrialists. They both had their view of what type of education we needed to make our new-born freedom realized. During this period there’s an analogy—I’ve said this to all my friends in Kipp And TFA. During this period two groups of white people descended on us the industrialists and the missionaries. And each one of them have their own view of what kind of education we need.”

He’s right.  I add the following:  The Promise of Public Education must be the Promise of Engagement, or else there can be no Promise of Democracy.

Thank you.

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[1] http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-public-school-reform-bolsters-post-katrina-new-orleans

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[i] Tracie L. Washington is an attorney working in New Orleans, Louisiana.  www.TracieWashington.com.

When Teachers Miss a Teachable Moment

The Oklahoma frat boys should not have been expelled from OU based upon that ridiculously despicable display of racism, racial insensitivity, and stupidity. On top of that, the decision couldn’t withstand constitutional challenge, at least not if I was representing these misguided idiots – But that’s really beside the point. The students should not be expelled because OU has an obligation to teach them better. 


Right after Hurricane Katrina, I had a mouse problem. The first time I saw that mouse run from one side of my office to somewhere behind my bookshelf, I screamed like I don’t know what. I’m not going to lie (because I’d be outted by James Perry). I screamed, and jumped on my chair, and hyperventilated. That’s what happens with everyone, right? But then you breathe. And after you’ve calmed down (and feel safe walking to the vodka), you call the exterminator. A really good exterminator will make you face the fact that you don’t have a mouse problem. You have mice. Then he will tell you how those mice can be eliminated. It’s hard work. He’ll lay the traps and spray, but you and your entire family have to change how you live. Check your exterior walls. Secure your house from small cracks. Clean out your pantry. Throw away anything with small holes and seal everything in containers. Train your kids on the new rules in the house: no eating outside the kitchen/den; clean up immediately; seal the pet food.

If we can do all of this to rid ourselves of mice, should no less care and attention be taken at our universities to purge themselves of campus racism? It is an opportunity the clean house and teach an ENTIRE community how to live better. Of course the clean-up will be taxing. But everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in that University of Oklahoma community must be compelled to participate and explore the social processes that have racialized individuals, institutions, and culture in American society and on their campus. They’ve got to learn the dynamics of cultural destructiveness, cultural incapacity, color-blindness, and cultural competence. And they’ve got to receive the tools that will make them lifelong anti-racism exterminators.

I know my position here is tough to swallow. But someone must lead. What if President Boren swallowed hard and told those young men and their parents "It won't get any better anywhere else. Not now. And while I am disgusted by your actions, you are going to learn better, right here, and grow to be better people, right here; or you will face first rejection from other school that won't admit you; and then rejection by the student body at any school that will admit you." And what if President Boren and his staff (Chief Diversity Officer) challenged his student body to be better -- to embrace these young men and teach them, while they ALL learned?

At some point, we've got to start growing better people.


Those frat boys behaved badly. But they are young and they are in school, and we should take this teachable moment … And Teach.

This is Post-Racial, America?

I want everyone (especially you attorneys), to reflect about the perverse irony and significance of Eric H. Holder, Jr., our 82^nd Attorney General and first African American to hold this position as our nation’s chief law enforcement official, having "the talk" last year with his then 15 year old son.  You know “the talk,” right?  It’s that uncomfortable but critically necessary conversation all responsible African-American parents have with their teenage sons, where we tell them they have less legal right to life, liberty, and property than their white friends.  It’s that talk where we have to admit that all the other things we had been telling them – you’re as good as everyone else; you have rights as a citizen; if you work hard and follow the rules, you will do well in this world – well, there’s a caveat.  “But son, don’t forget you’re Black, and so you need to be 3x better, and they can stop you for being black, and whatever you do, don’t talk back, and always keep your hands where they can see them.”  That talk.

 As a lawyer I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating and humiliating it was for me to go off on Jacob several years back for leaving the house without his ID while walking Justice in our neighborhood.  No, technically we don't have pass laws in Louisiana, but civil rights attorney mom had to tell her son to behave like we do.  It's the caveat.  Of course, my tone led to an epic battle with Jacob, until my dad stepped in.  My septuagenarian father, who could not walk down Fontainbleau Drive without ID when he was a teenager -- 55 years prior to Jacob Criú Washington – agreed with me.  Perverse irony.  My dad marched to insure I had a right to buy this house in this neighborhood; 55 years later, I’ve got the house, but his grandson still needs a pass.

 I thought about that episode today when I was driving home along Fontainbleau Drive and listening to Attorney General Holder give his keynote address at the NAACP’s convention – in Florida, where thousands of African-Americans are spending their hard earned dollars buttressing the economy of a state that allowed a white man to go free after murdering an African-American male teenager whose crime was walking in a neighborhood without a pass.   

 And I thought about this photo, and Dad and Jacob's beautiful expressions, ... and Madiba.

 

Dr. Louis X. Washington, Sr. and Jacob M. Washington

This is post-racial America. 

COMING TO A COMMUNITY NEAR YOU … US!

My first essay of thoughts post-ZV (Zimmerman Verdict) were just too personal and, in some places, too incendiary to publish.  It came on the heels of me still feeling very raw about the murder of Ashley Qualls, the 25-year old social worker who was killed while walking home from work, and Jordan Davis, the 17-year old Florida teen killed for simply playing loud music too loudly.  I’ll hold on to that essay, maybe for another post.  I knew there would be morning time, church (thank you Henry), introspection, and better perspective (Thank you God).

I watched and listened to nearly three (3) hours of post-ZV analysis last night.  Sunny, and Jeffery, and Lisa, and Joy-Ann.  Then there was Rev. Al and Rev. Jackson, and Marc and Ben.  And others.  They are not omniscient; they said what we were all thinking. 

“Really?  This is justice?  A child, barely 17, left his home to go to the corner store and buy some snacks, killed by a wanna-be cop, who had been indoctrinated with an irrational fear of black males in general, and who had been told to stay clear of this black male specifically?  This is justice?  Six white women said the barely 17 year old being dead is okay … ‘See the man at the desk about your gun, Georgie.  Peace out.’” 

This is justice?  Of course not.  It’s wrong.  I can tell you why I think it’s wrong, but I’m no more omniscient than those other talking heads.  Here’s what those folks haven’t addressed:  The lesson?  That I can tell you.  Let’s start with a story.

A couple of years ago, a local politician decided to go HAM against this civil rights lawyer.  Politician used her office to encourage the IRS and the FBI to investigate the lawyer; politician asked the lawyer’s assessor to raise the assessment of the lawyer’s home; politician asked a state representative to cut-off any government funding of the lawyer’s non-profit; and then, most scary, politician told her friends to drive-by and stalk the lawyer’s house and her 16 year old son.  It’s all documented in the emails.  When the lawyer complained, the Ethics Commission, the Louisiana Bar Association, and the U.S. Attorney all responded politician had done nothing wrong.  ‘See the judge at the court about your emails, Stacy.  Peace out.’ 

This is justice?  Of course not.  It’s wrong, but it set the bar.  That’s the lesson folks!  If we allow this killing to go without penalty, then we’ve set the bar so low that you give absolutely no hope to an increasingly growing population of disaffected black and brown youth, male and female, who believe there are no rules to help them or to protect them.  If we allow this killing to go without penalty, we’re saying it doesn’t matter if you’re as good as Trayvon or Ashlee …  Make good grades.  Check.  Stay out of trouble.  Check.  College.  Graduate School. Job.  Check, Check, Check.  Trayvon and Ashlee are dead.

Coming to a Community near You…  Do you really want these young people, with this bar, set this low?  With this lesson?  I don’t think so.  Let’s flip the script and try Luke 10:25-37. 

Coming to a Community near You...  Your Neighbor, who is 56% of the working-age population in New Orleans, 70% of New Orleans’ children.  Your Neighbor, who you don’t profile, but recognize and accept because he doesn’t look like you.  You Neighbor, who you don’t pass by, but bandage and heal when he falls into the hands of robbers leaving him half dead.  Your Neighbor, who you don’t judge, but believes in justice just like you and will not rest until it comes. 

Coming to a Community near You…  Your Neighbor … Us.  Either we flip the script, or as God is our witness, we will all perish.

 

Running Into the Fire

TracieSays:  July 2, 2013

Photo credit.  Hoover Library

 

We were reminded again this past weekend about the bravery of our heroes – recognized and unsung – who run towards the fire.  On Sunday in Yarnell, Arizona the heat was overwhelming and as is so often the case, the flames were fueled by winds that spread the fire too quickly for 19 ‘Hot Shot’ firefighters to escape.  And they perished.  We mourn their loss and pray for their families.

Like firefighters, those seemingly ordinary citizens, our friends, family, neighbors, who stand on the front lines for justice also run into the fire.  And this year we commemorate a particularly hot summer in American history:  the Summer of 1963, which marked several milestones.  After Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested on April 12 for protesting in Birmingham without a city permit, he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in which he responds to eight (8) white Alabama ministers who urged him to end the protests – to walk away from the fire – and be patient with the judicial process of overturning segregation.

On June 11, President Kennedy delivered a speech on civil rights from the Oval Office, to explain why he sent the National Guard to allow the admittance of two Black students to the University of Alabama.

On June 12, Byron De La Beckwith assassinated Medgar Evers, the first field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi.

Summer – 80,000 blacks quickly registered to vote in Mississippi, by a test project to show their desire to participate.

On August 18, James Meredith graduated from Ole Miss.

On August 28, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held in D.C.  At least 250,000 people participated, and Rev. King delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. 

And on September 15, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham is bombed. Four young girls are killed (Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley).

1963's summer was very hot.

But Goddamn.

Nina our justice fighters did not Go Slow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVQjGGJVSXc).  Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, and 4 little girls weathered the firestorms, and helped bring to freedoms today we could only dream of on August 28, 1963.

They keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"To slow"
Desegregation
"To slow'
Mass participation
"To slow"
Reunification
"To slow"
Do things gradually
"To slow"
But bring more tragedy
"To slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

Our justice work must continue because we are nowhere near done, we are nowhere near tired, and we are nowhere near bamboozled (Obama cannot cure our racial problems).

Today on The Good Morning Show we will talk to the adult children of Robert Hicks, who in 1963-1964 fought infernos set by Ku Klux Klan though out Louisiana with the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

And then we will turn to a conversation with Nicole Lamoureux (Executive Director, National Association of Free Clinics) and Rev. Al Sharpton (Human Rights Advocate & Host of Politics Nation on MSNBC), who are tackling a human rights hellfire abyss that is indiscriminately ravaging our nation’s poor and marginalized communities:  the inability to access health care.  These two warriors have made it their mission to call attention to this crisis and to act.

 

In the end, we remind ourselves that Go Slow is anathema to our flame-jumpers. 

They run toward danger because they know, today, tomorrow, or 50 years from now:

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

[Lee, cut to Nina Simone – Mississippi Goddamn, then break]

I am Rachel Jeantel

I teared up yesterday as I watched Rachel Jeantel testify.   But I don’t think I was really weeping for Rachel.  I think I cried because I saw from the outside how others very different from me, perceive me (thru the "Rachel lens"), and I felt deeply what that frustration meant.  I teared up because I'm 30 years older than Rachel, and I understand fully at age 49 there are still people who can't comprehend why I won't perm my hair and, therefore, like Rachel presume I’m militant.   I teared up because I'm 30 years older than Rachel, with a B.A., MPA, and JD, and there are still folk who won't understand me when I speak and, therefore, like Rachel think I'm unintelligent.   I teared up because I'm 30 years older than Rachel, and there are still folk who won’t understand my levels of emotion can span beyond simply catatonic or mad and, therefore, like Rachel perceive my exasperation as anger (you know … the mad Black woman).

I teared up because I'm a mom and I wanted nothing more than to fly or drive or walk to Florida and help this young lady, because I understand they don't see her.   Because we don't see that this young woman who speaks three languages is far wiser than the idiot defense attorney who can't tell a knock, knock joke without fumbling.   Because my sisters on the web criticize Rachel even though they suffer these same indignities on their jobs, but can afford to hire Attorney Tracie to fix them.   Because she embodies all that is complex and brave and beautiful about all women of color. 

 

Because I am Rachel Jeantel.