"The Pauls" blasted over slow RSD achievement growth

Orleans Parish School Board member Thomas Robichaux levels some pretty damning accusations at the state Recovery School District in this blog post. And he has some evidence to back it all up.

Robichaux begins by pointing out that the much-touted RSD is improving schools at a slower clip than the much-maligned Orleans Parish School Board. Even though the RSD spends nearly twice as much per student as the parish school board, it "is achieving one-fourth the result."

The school board member lists three reasons why RSD achievement is disappointing: RSD's "shell game" opens, closes and shuffles schools around too much; the masterminds behind RSD are too intent on taking over schools and changing the state's "governance paradigm in education," and not concerned enough with real, meaningful reform; and there is in RSD "a disregard for experienced educators, favoring less expensive, and less experienced, younger teachers."

The devastating conclusion reached by Robichaux is this:

While the Pauls (LA Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek and RSD
Superintendent Paul Vallas) are busy letting out hundreds of millions of dollars
in contracts and giving power and authority to their friends and political
allies, they have not come up with a comprehensive plan to break the cycle of
bad education that we have had in this state and city for 50 years. In
short, the Pauls are doing just like so many other politicians have before them:
working to consolidate their own power (or that of their friends) and ignoring
the real problem of education.