The "faux outrage" is just something to whip up people against Duncan - and therefore, charter schools.
As for performance:
The performance of school districts in Louisiana is measured by a district performance score.
The district performance score (DPS) sums up the performance of students in a school district on a variety of state standardized tests and a few other indicators, like attendance, into a single number. If schools in New Orleans were still in one district, their district performance score would be 66.4 for the 2007-2008 school year. While this is low compared to the state performance score of 86.3, this represents a significant
increase of nearly 10 points from the district’s pre-Katrina score of 56.9 in the 2004-2005 school year.To put this 10-point increase into perspective, New Orleans public schools also improved by about 10 points in the three years between 2002 and 2005; however, no major disaster occurred during that period. Indeed, considering that many students came back to the city after Katrina having spent time out of school and suffering from the trauma of displacement, this increase in overall performance is promising.
At the same time, it is unclear how similar the current population of students is to the student population before the storm. Because it was harder for poor New Orleanians to return to the city after Hurricane Katrina, the proportion of families living in extreme poverty in New Orleans has declined according to US Census Bureau estimates. It is possible that part of the increase in achievement is due to the loss of some of the poorest and most challenged students that attended public schools before Katrina. (however demographics show ****)
It is difficult to compare scores for different schools in New Orleans because the context from one school to the next is very different.
■■Following Hurricane Katrina, the school system was split by the state takeover of failing schools.
■■Over 100 low-performing New Orleans schools were placed into the state-run Recovery School District (RSD). Some schools became open-admission charter schools, others were opened as RSD-run schools, and some remain closed.
■■Higher-performing schools that were not taken over, many of which had some form of selective admissions, were either chartered or continued to be operated by the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB).
■■Because schools were assigned to one of the two post-storm systems, RSD and OPSB, based on their previous academic performance, it is not useful or valid to expect similar performance from OPSB and RSD schools, at least in the near term. They serve, on average, very different groups of students.
■■Consequently, though the district performance score (DPS) of the entire district if it still existed would have been 66.4, the RSD’s score was 51.4 while the OPSB scored 96.1
(Now here's the really interesting bit - - - )
Within each district, there were also significant differences between the average performance of charter and traditional schools.
■■Like districts, individual schools receive a school performance score (SPS) based on student performance on state tests and other indicators.
■■In both the OPSB and the RSD, charter schools had higher average performance scores than traditional district-run schools.
■■Within the OPSB, charters tend to be more selective than district-run schools, which explains a part of their higher performance.
■■Within the RSD, charters and district-run schools both serve similar student demographics in terms of ethnicity and poverty.
■■However, some key differences remain:
– RSD-run schools have higher student mobility rates and serve a higher proportion of special education students than RSD charters.
– Parents and teachers in RSD charters reported higher rates of satisfaction with their schools than their RSD-run counterparts in Cowen Institute surveys. This could indicate
that RSD charters are more effective at educating students.
In spite of their lower absolute scores, school performance scores grew more for RSD schools than for OPSB schools between the 2006-2007 school year and the 2007-2008 school year.
The promising news: the average performance for every school type in New Orleans grew significantly over the past two years.http://www.tulane.edu/cowen_institute/documents/2009SPENOAddendumExecSummary.pdf*****
Though the system of schools has experienced radical change, the context in which it operates remains similar to before Katrina, and new challenges have emerged:
■ Public school students in New Orleans are overwhelmingly poor. Eighty-three percent of students are eligible to receive free or reduced lunches compared to 63 percent statewide.
■ New Orleans’ overall population is approximately 63 percent minority, while public school students are nearly 95 percent minority—primarily African-American.
■ Across the systems, but especially in the RSD-run and RSD charter schools, the majority of students are well below grade level.
■ Public schools have a high percentage of special education students, many of whom have not been evaluated.
■ Many students have unaddressed mental health needs due to their experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina.
. . . Survey:
■ A survey was distributed in online and paper formats
between January and March 2008. Th e online
version was sent out to school principals, education
policymakers, community leaders and neighborhood
associations to distribute. Th e paper version was
distributed at nearly every public school in New Orleans
via drop-boxes. Cowen Institute researchers also
conducted intercept surveys of public school parents
outside of fi ve geographically diverse supermarkets in
New Orleans over the course of two weekends. Due
to erratic responses received from students during last
year’s survey, students were not actively targeted with the
survey and instead were engaged through focus groups.
■ Th e survey received 1,867 responses.
■ Teachers: 585 teachers responded, 51 percent of whom
were African-American. Th ere were suffi ciently large
samples from teachers for Recovery School District
(RSD)-run schools, Orleans Parish School Board
(OPSB)-run schools, RSD charters, and OPSB charters.
■ Parents: 529 parents responded, 54 percent of whom
were African-American. Th ere were suffi ciently large
samples from parents for RSD-run schools, RSD
charters, and OPSB charters.
http://www.tulane.edu/cowen_institute/documents/080417SPENOReportFINAL.pdf***** Student Demographics Change Little in Post-Katrina New Orleans
The Times-Picayune
11/29/2006
Expectation that Hurricane Katrina would have a tumultuous effect on student demographics in New Orleans public schools has proved groundless. Based on a wealth of data compiled by state education officials now running the system, the district's racial breakdown and poverty level remain almost exactly what they were before the hurricane.
http://www.districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?news=yes&postid=17815*******
New Orleans Schools Four Years after Katrina:
The Southern Education Foundation
Characteristics
In late 2008, almost 36,000 students attended K‐12 public schools in New Orleans, of 10,000 approximately 95 percent of the student population (90 percent were African American), and 84 percent were low income students (79 percent living in poverty) in the 2008-2009 school year.
. . . Public schools in New Orleans in 2008 and 2009 had a smaller studentpopulation to educate than in 2004‐05, but Orleans Parish public schools had been losing American to the proportion in October 2004 (93 percent), and the percentage of students in families living in poverty (eligible to receive free lunches by federal standards) was, fact, It is true that the numbers of extremely poor students in New Orleans may be slightly in than in the years immediately prior to the hurricane, but the difference of two percentage points is not statistically significant and almost within the estimates margins of error.
www.sefatl.org/pdf/NOSchools-report-pre-pub.pdf
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