The real shame in Jindal's Washington speech

Governor Bobby Jindal says the lawsuit filed by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and others to challenge the constitutionality of his voucher scheme is “shameful.” But what’s really a shame is the way our governor disdained the rule of law and readily available research in his crusade to privatize public education.

Jindal spoke on Tuesday at a Washington, D.C. meeting of the right-wing Brookings Institution, which convened that day to praise the state’s Recovery School District for becoming what Brookings claims is the best in the nation in terms of school choice.

That claim is debatable: RSD has some of the lowest achievement scores in the state, many parents complain that they can’t enroll their children in New Orleans’ high-achieving charter schools, and the district’s record with children with exceptionalities is spotty.

Jindal did not limit his remarks to the RSD, however. As Times-Picayune Washington correspondent Bruce Alpert reports here, the governor took advantage of the national forum to defend his voucher plan and bash teacher unions for pointing out its legal flaws.

That the governor would change the subject from choice in the RSD to his vision of a nationwide plan to pay for private and religious school tuition says much more about Jindal’s national ambitions than about his concern for schools in Louisiana.

Jindal said the union “is working hard every day to make sure that you do not ever get the opportunity to get your child out of that failing school…”

In the reality based world, as LFT President Steve Monaghan pointed out, the union’s objective in filing our lawsuit was to uphold the Constitution of the State of Louisiana. It was in fact a conservative Republican judge who ruled on November 30 that the governor’s voucher plan violates a section of the constitution that reserves public school funds for public schools.

A pilot plan for vouchers, enacted in 2008 and funded separately through the state general fund, was never the subject of a constitutional challenge, although the LFT did oppose it as a matter of flawed policy.


If Gov. Jindal wants to blame someone for the outcome of the lawsuit, he need only consult a mirror.

The governor’s Washington speech reinforced a few things that we already know about his agenda.

First, that his political goals in life lie far outside the boundaries of our state. “Do not lay your head on the pillow at night believing that America [not just Louisiana] provides equal opportunity in education. We do not," he told the Brookings crowd.

Second, that Jindal believes the privatization of education is the only way to guarantee all children a high-quality education. On Tuesday, that required a delicate dance in which the governor had to accept Brookings’ praise of the state’s public school choice options while at the same time condemning public education as a failure.

His almost religious faith in the efficacy of private education also is belied by research that shows voucher schools to have produced results about the same or even lower than their public counterparts.

Third, that Jindal believes teacher unions are the educational equivalent of the Antichrist. He does not want to hear that we, too, have ideas about school reform. Ours are research-based, educationally sound and proven to work. He does not want to believe that we, too, love children. He does not want to believe that we want schools to succeed.

The problem with beliefs that are not grounded in reality is that they lead the believer into error, and that is the territory in which Gov. Jindal now finds himself.

At one point in his speech, the governor called on teachers to “peel the scales off their eyes.” What he does not seem to realize is that the scales have, indeed, fallen from teachers’ eyes. And when they look at Gov. Jindal, they do not like what they see.

Is the state seizure of schools justified?

Schools in the state-run Recovery School District are no longer improving any faster than schools in other large urban school systems, Advocate reporter Charles Lussiere writes in this column.

That is important because State Superintendent of Education John White and his department have touted RSD's previous growth as "justification for expanding its role in Baton Rouge."

Lussiere notes that between 2007 and 2012, student test scores in New Orleans' RSD schools improved faster than the rest of the state.

But in the last year, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson Parish school districts improved at the same rate as the RSD, and increased proficiency at a greater rate than the rest of the state.

Those facts beg many questions that should be answered before state control is exerted in districts outside New Orleans.

Why did RSD schools show a spurt in the years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city? Did it have as much to do with the changing population of that tragic city as with the imposition of state control over the schools?

Have any studies explained that growth and revealed a path to replicate the success elsewhere?

Why has the growth of proficiency in New Orleans RSD slowed, and why has it increased in Baton Rouge and Jefferson?

The seizure of schools by the state is a radical step. It should not be taken unless all those questions and more can be answered in its favor.

If "reform" seems so good to be true, it probably is!

Thank God for Diane Ravitch! In this op-ed for the New York Times, the prickly professor punctures the bubble of so-called "reform," convincingly demonstrating that many success stories "are the result of statistical legerdemain. "

Ravitch takes aim at the No Child Left behind mandate that all children must be proficient in either reading or math by 2014. Teachers understand that to be an impossible goal, she writes, because of the "enormous variation among students and the impact of family income on academic performance."

Even so, she writes, many politicians and the snake-oil salesmen who've hijacked the education agenda claim "that the right combination of incentives and punishments will produce dramatic improvement. Anyone who objects to this utopian mandate, they maintain, is just making an excuse for low expectations and bad teachers."

With assistance from former LSU professor and Baton Rouge School Board member Noel Hammatt, Ravitch proceeds to demolish extravagant claims for success in some reconstituted schools.

Taking particular aim at two schools mentioned by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address, Ravitch says "the only miracle at these schools was a triumph of public relations."

One of those claimed a high graduation rate, but its published ACT scores were far below the state average. Another, which Obama said had "skyrocketed" since firing the principal and half the faculty, actually ranks 430th out of 469 high schools in math.

In conclusion, Ravitch urges the public to meet inflated claims of educational improvement with skepticism - a lesson yet to be learned in Louisiana, where credulous news media uncritically report bogus gains in the State Recovery School District.

The answer simply is not as easy as firing teachers or reconstituting schools because, as Ravitch puts it,

If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to
learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our
educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.

TP wet kisses Pastorek; researcher debunks claims

As Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek rides off into the sunset, opinionistas like the Times-Picayune's editorial writers are trying to beatify him on a faster track than Pope John Paul II.

Friday's editorial gushed that Pastorek's "legacy will reverberate for years to come."

That may be so, but in ways unintended by the Picayune's uptown Brahmans.

Pastorek was not only divisive and unwilling to compromise, which the Picayune counts as good things, but he presided over a department that acquiesced in an ongoing plot to privatize, charterize and voucherize public education in Louisiana to a unprecedented extent.

Again, there are some who count those as good things. Good for the big buck administrators making six-figure salaries, and good for the consultants who now suckle at the public breast, and good for the right-wing politicians planning political futures built on the wreckage of public education in our state.

For the children, parents, teachers and school employees who want a decent public education system, not so much.

To find out why, check out researcher Charles Hatfield's response to the Picayune editorial here.

Hatfield and the organization he represents, Research on Reforms, has consistently debunked claims by Pastorek and the Jindal administration touting the alleged success of the State Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Peruse the Research on Reforms Web site, and you'll find convincing evidence that the Jindal/Pastorek agenda was "to deceive the public in order to promote the market‐driven goals of the new public education entrepreneurs and to increase the number of failing schools turned over to privately run 'public schools' in Louisiana. This is really what the state is doing."

As Hatfield concludes, "it is unfortunate that The Times‐Picayune continues to be extremely myopic and biased with respect to its one‐sided reporting on the success of the current reform initiatives of the former state superintendent, Paul Pastorek. Instead, it continues its simplistic reporting of this extremely complex issue and continues to pander to the misinformation and propaganda generated by the proponents of this market driven approach to public education, even though no quantitative or qualitative evaluations exist after five years to justify the continued existence of the RSD."

Whither White?

Everybody now knows that newly minted Recovery School District head John White is Gov. Bobby Jindal's pick to replace Paul Pastorek as the state superintendent of education. But who is he, and does he have a realistic chance of becoming superintendent?

White is just 35 years old, and fresh from his last job as deputy chancellor for the New York City school system. His main duty there, according to blogger Mike Deshotels, was "to close down low performing schools and to convert as many schools as possible into charter schools. He was also working on a system to evaluate teachers using student test scores."

Prior to his New York experience, White taught for two years as a Teach for America recruit, and then went to work as the Teach for America executive director in Chicago, according to this New York Times article. Aside from his abbreviated teaching stint, White's academic credentials include certification from the Broad Superintendents Academy.

The Academy's Web site claims that it takes "executives who have experience successfully leading large organizations and a passion for public service" and, after 10 months of training on weekends, "places them in urban school districts to dramatically improve the quality of education for America’s students."

There is no indication that White ever led a large corporation. However, he does have a qualification that seems very important to the Jindal administration - he, along with the new executive director of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the governor's education advisor, emerged from Teach for America.

That distinction does not impress a new coalition of education organizations, which includes the LFT.

As Monroe News-Star reporter Barbara Leader writes here, the coalition wants Jindal and BESE to follow state law, which says that when the state superintendent leaves, he is to be replaced by the deputy superintendent for the remainder of the term, unless it is longer than a year.

There is a deputy superintendent already in place, and there is therefore no need to hurry up and find an interim to fill the job until next January.

And if that's not barrier enough to the governor's wishes, it appears that enough BESE members have problems with White's credentials to block his appointment. This article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell reveals that four of the 11 BESE members would vote against confirming White, and since a two-thirds majority is required, it looks like his outlook is dim.

Not that any of that makes much difference if the governor really has his heart set on White as the new superintendent. Our whole form of government is set up to make Louisiana's governor the most powerful in the nation. There are many levers of power that Jindal can tweak to get his way.

New RSD chief to get $281K package

The new, 35-year old chief of the State Recovery School District will get a $281,000 pay package, according to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell.

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, who brokered the deal with former New York City school system deputy superintendent John White, said the high salary is justified because of the "incredible amount of personal sacrifice" required by the job.

Although White will be making less than current RSD chief Paul Vallas, who makes about $377,000 per year, his salary will be higher than the state's new higher education commissioner.

Right on schedule, apologists for the state's big business lobby justified the pay package, trotting out the old bromide about having to pay high salaries to get highly qualified people. That formula doesn't seem to apply to classroom teachers, where the strategy has been to hire new college graduates, who will work for approximately two years at the low end of the salary schedule.

In any event, the old bromide doesn't seem to have worked in the Recovery School District. Despite Vallas' princely salary, student performance has not improved in schools seized by the state, according to this study by Dr. Charles Hatfield, co-founder of Research on Reforms.

As Dr. Hatfield writes in the study's summary, "Whether assessing the 2010-11 status of the RSD schools using the current achievement performance labels or applying the new letter grade system that will be implemented this fall, it is clear that the SPS achievement status for the vast majority of the RSD schools is at best pathetic."

RSD failing to improve Baton Rouge schools

Yet more evidence is emerging that state bureaucrats can't do any better - and in some cases are worse - than locally elected public school boards at improving our schools.

This story by Advocate reporter Will Sentell includes whines from Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek about how long it takes to effect changes in a school.

Also whining is a spokesperson for Advance Baton Rouge, an organization that runs two schools on behalf of the state, schools in which scores have significantly declined since the takeover.

Those schools, the flack says, ought to improve because of a $13.2 million grant coming their way to improve teacher quality.

Remember when they used to say you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it?

RSD loses 180 computers

After three years in office, the Jindal administration admits that more than $23 million worth of state property has gone missing.

As this report from FOX8 investigative reporter Lee Zurik reveals, one chunk of that total was ripped from the state Recovery School District in New Orleans:

State records show on September 10, 2009, the Recovery School District
purchased 180 computers worth $746 each. About one year later, those same
records show all 180 computers are missing. They were purchased for $134,000.

Maybe the loss can help explain why the per-pupil expenditure in the RSD is nearly twice that of the state's other public schools.

Testy exchanges over seized schools' performance

Schools that have been seized by the state are not performing up to expectations, and lawmakers want to know why.

That's the gist of the action at Wednesday's meeting of the joint House and Senate Education Committees, reported here by The Advocate's Will Sentell.

They got few answers from Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Penny Dastugue.

Both said that the schools taken by the state had been failing their obligations to students for years, but that wasn't what the senators and representatives were asking. They wanted to know why many schools, some operated by independent charters and some by the state Recovery School District, aren't faring any better under the new management.

In testy exchanges, Pastorek said that "dozens" of the 180-plus schools seized by the state have shown major improvements.

But with some 200 schools under consideration for seizure, lawmakers were seeking assurance that the department of education can guarantee improvement. They got no guarantees.

Not letting a good tragedy go to waste

Despite the fact that there's no evidence charter schools really do a better job of educating children, and despite the fact that Recovery District schools in New Orleans are much more expensive without providing a better educational product, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek allows the right-wing Reason Institute to regurgitate the "silver lining" calumny about Hurricane Katrina and public education in the Crescent City.

People to Pastorek: Give our schools back!

Next month, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will vote on what to do about New Orleans schools that were taken over by the state after Hurricane Katrina and put under control of the Recovery School District.

While State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek does a shuck-and-jive over his department's plans, the people of New Orleans are making their wishes clear.

Last night, there was a public hearing at McDonogh 35 school in New Orleans to gauge community sentiment on the issue. As TV8 weekend anchor Shelley Brown reports here, the crowd at McDonogh wants the schools handed back to the control of the Orleans Parish School Board.

Newsweek article tarnishes New Orleans' charter image

In a devastating new report, Newsweek magazine alleges that New Orleans' charter schools, widely touted as the solution to the city's "failed" public school system, discriminate against children with disabilities.

"What good is the charter revolution," the headline asks, "if it doesn't reach the students who are most in need?"

Part of the Newsweek article focuses on a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Louisiana Department of Education. The lawsuit claims that charter schools in New Orleans violate the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, "particularly in terms of excessive punishment of children with emotional and behavioral problems."

Newsweek says the expulsion rates for special education students in New Orleans charter schools are "shockingly high."

One apologist for New Orleans charter schools tells Newsweek that the problem is "not enough resources," and that in New Orleans "such a great percentage of students are considered special needs."

But anyone who follows the news knows that New Orleans schools, particularly in the Recovery School District, receive much more per student than other public schools in the state. And Newsweek demolishes the argument about the number of special needs students in the city:

Actually, the percentage of public-school students in New Orleans considered
special needs is pretty low: just 8 percent. In Baltimore, the percentage of
special-needs students was 15.3 percent in the school year 2008–09, while in St.
Louis, the percentage was 17.4.

The Newsweek article raises an important issue: "does the much-touted academic progress of New Orleans’s post-Katrina charters come in part because special-needs students are being weeded out? "

New Orleans schools aren't serving special education students well

It seemed like the wholesale takeover of New Orleans schools by the state following Hurricane Katrina was going so well, what with the Recovery School District spending twice the per-pupil amount as the state's other public schools, and all.


Then the Southern Poverty Law Center has to go and spoil it all by revealing that the city's Recovery District and charter schools are doing a lousy job of caring for special needs students.


As Times-Picayune reporter Cindy Chang puts it in this story, "Thirteen students with disabilities have filed a complaint against the Louisiana Department of Education alleging that the agency has looked the other way while New Orleans public schools commit a range of federal violations, from refusing to enroll them to failing to provide a blind third-grader with a full-time aide."


And since there are only a small handful of schools left under the jurisdiction of the much-maligned Orleans Parish School Board, there's no place left to place special needs children except the schools that were taken over by the state.


For his part, Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek is simply SHOCKED to learn that children aren't getting the services they deserve, and if only the Southern Poverty Law Center had called him instead of filing a lawsuit, this all could have been handled without any public outcry.

Times-Picayune explains it all for you

The Times-Picayune starts out doing what it does best in this Cindy Chang story - bashing New Orleans schools, praising the state-seized Recovery School District and going on about how much better off people are in Houston.

But then things get hazy.

Could be they're not better off in Houston: “Meanwhile," Chang writes, "New Orleans public school students have also made academic progress, though the results in each location involve different exams and cannot be directly compared."

So there has been improvement among New Orleans students. According to the Picayune's mythology, that must be because of the RSD, "which took over most of the city's schools after Katrina, (and) a combination of factors, including the post-storm prevalence of charter schools."

The article fawns over RSD chief Paul Vallas, and quotes him as saying, "Clearly, the kids we have in this district now are doing far better than they did prior to Katrina."

Then, in a true feat of journalistic dissonance, comes the very next sentence in the story. Read it slowly, and savor the contradiction: "According to Tulane's Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, which consolidated data from the Recovery School District and the Orleans Parish School Board, the city logged a 10-point improvement in district performance scores from 2005 to 2008 -- a gain roughly equal to that posted during the years prior to the storm."

The Picayune continues in that vein in the editorial of the day: "The progress shown here and in Texas involves different tests and cannot be directly compared. But clearly New Orleans children are doing much better now than they were before the storm."

As our favorite barrister explains it, "So, the kids are doing far better in Houston than in New Orleans, except they aren’t. And the kids are doing far better now because of charter schools, except they’re doing the same."

Is the Recovery School District shortchanging special needs children?

All public schools are supposed to admit students without regard to disability or special circumstances. But last week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education heard a report detailing what Times-Picayune reporter Sarah Carr characterized as "wide, and stubborn, gaps in the number of students with special needs" in New Orleans' charter and Recovery School District schools.

Read her report here.

The comments by readers deserve special notice - there are first-hand reports of charter and RSD schools turning away special education students, even referring them to pricey private schools.

"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.

Vallas: Filipino recruiter should be prosecuted

The superintendent of the state Recovery School District says the RSD has severed its connection with the company that recruited Filipino teachers to work in Louisiana.

Paul Vallas told WWL-TV reporter Paul Murphy for this story that Universal Placement International and its owner, Lourdes Navarro, were awarded a $47,500 contract to recruit Filipino teachers for hard-to-staff positions in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"We weren't comfortable using a for profit company to help us recruit teachers," Vallas told the reporter. "So, after that summer, we had no further use for them."

Vallas told Murphy that he believes the Filipino teachers should sue the recruiter to recover their losses, and that criminal charges should be filed against Navarro.

Smell test: proposed contract not up to sniff

Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek's former law firm will have to wait a bit longer to see if it will get some $650,000 in state contracts, according to this article by Advocate reporter Will Sentell.

A bevy of officials, including legislators and members of the state education board, complained that a no-bid contract about to be awarded to the Adams and Reese law firm did not pass what one member called the "smell test."

The contracts in question involve the state Recovery School District in New Orleans. One of them, for $500,000, is to help the RSD "obtain construction funds through state and federal tax credit programs."

Another contract, for $125,000, is for legal advice associated with construction.

As a rule, no-bid contracts can be awarded if only one vendor is capable of providing the requested services. Members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education say there are probably firms other than Adams and Reese capable of doing the work.

RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas told Sentell that bids will be sought for the work, and that the three best proposals will be submitted to the BESE.

Those bids could be considered in November. Adams and Reese will also probably be under scrutiny at the October BESE meeting - the firm represents Louisiana Connections Academy, a "virtual school" that is attempting to become the first statewide charter school to operate almost exclusively on the Internet.

RSD chief says schools will return to district control

In a meeting with the superintendent of the state Recovery School District, members of the Baton Rouge School Board made it clear that they want schools taken over by the state to be returned to the local system.

Shirl Gilbert responded, “I’m telling you we’re going to turn these schools around, and when we give them back, they will be better off than they were before.”

Advocate reporter Charles Lussiere has the story here.

Failure in New Orleans Recovery School District?

Tucked away in this Times-Picayune editorial is a startling admission that the highly touted State Recovery District isn't performing up to snuff.

The statement comes as part of an an endorsement for charter school proposals: "It's particularly encouraging that two groups are applying to take over traditional Recovery School District campuses with low test scores and turn them around."

Roll that thought around in your head for a minute: RSD campuses with low test scores must be turned around. Wasn't the Recovery District supposed to be the agent of change that would bring "failing schools" up to an acceptable standard? And by the way, RSD schools are funded at a much higher per-pupil rate than other public schools - so why are they failing?

Where is the outrage on the TP's editorial page that, four years after Katrina, the RSD schools still have low scores and must be turned around?

And why is the city's paper of record only touting charter schools as the right fix for the RSD's failure? New Orleans has a public school board that has been completely revamped and scandal-free since the storm, and has proven its bona fides.

Even before Hurricane Katrina - and this is the little secret that reformers conveniently ignore - New Orleans schools had improved by 10.5 points over a four-year period. In the four years since the storm, RSD schools have improved by 9.5 points.

So why not let the school board take back the failing RSD schools? Unless you really have a bias in favor of charter schools, there's no reason not to go with the Orleans Parish school Board.