Why Did Louisiana Not Get Race To The Top?

[proud2BlibKansan]

Louisiana lost out to the Race To The Top (because) so few school systems statewide were willing to collaborate with the Louisiana Department of Education. Why?

Because they have had an up-close view of what happened in New Orleans when the state took over the system and privatized schools, abolished democratic control of local schools, and replaced veteran teachers with temporary untrained teachers. New Orleans was a beachhead for the anti-democratic forces of privatization, and the market reformers who see democracy as an obstacle to progress tried to impose limits are board authority statewide. They also were more likely to see the research that shows virtually no change in the rate of student performance before and after the takeover. Ultimately, Louisiana lost the Race To The Top because local schools officials learned from experience that trading democracy for technocratic top-down control is a bad deal.

Lance Hill, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Southern Institute for Education and Research
Tulane University

Rachel Maddow is in New Orleans tonight and while she didn't address how they privatized the school system, her show addressed the housing issue where homes for the poor were knocked down in favor of gentrification. Same issue in essence. She and a guest talked about privatization and the pushing out of the poor.

Now that ties in with the bogus super duper success of the New Orleans schools since they basically wiped out the public schools and the teachers union with it. Paul Vallas, who ruined Chicago and Philly was brought in to bring in a Katrina like disaster to the school system. By the way, he is leaving. But he said that no more than 60% of the schools should be charters. Of course, they got rid of poor people but they have calculated there is enough left that they don't want sullying their charter schools with.

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/tying-up-loose-strings.html

[madfloridian]

1. They are getting 1.8 billion from FEMA to build charter and public schools.

http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2010/08/money_for_new_orleans_school_c.html

I remember when Vallas said this about special education.

"JOHN MERROW: District-wide data indicate that Vallas has a problem. The average special education population in traditional schools is 12 percent, but at charter schools, it's less than 8 percent.
Are your charter schools somehow excluding special needs kids?

PAUL VALLAS: No. No, not at all. Charters are generally much smaller than regular, traditionally run schools. You know, so charters may not have the capacity to have the various special education specialties like the speech therapists, et cetera. A parent's going to ask, "Do you have these services?" And if a charter doesn't have those services, the parent's going to look for another school.

KARRAN HARPER ROYAL, Parent Advocate: That's discrimination. That's discrimination. You can dress it up however you like to, but it's really discrimination."


They do not have to provide for special needs, let them look for another school.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. That's illegal in my state

Thank god.

Yes they still turn sped kids away but they are required to offer the full range of services the kids need.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Getting rid of poor people was/is the primary goal of the rebuilding of N.O.

That was made VERY clear by Rachel Maddow and her guest last night.

There were some of us tinfoil hat wearers who felt that pres shit-for-brains and his corporate cronies were not above allowing the
city to be ruined....."not so benign neglect"..just so they could remake it into a Disneyland version of N.O.
There are plenty of speculators who are making a fortune off this rebuilding.....
I would be willing to bet that they were all bush voters.

The Times Picayune was writing articles about this even BEFORE Katrina hit.
They were warning about the dikes and seawalls for a long time before Katrina.
They were condemning the Army Corps of Engineers before most of us had ever even heard of them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Disaster capitalism

[BrklynLiberal]

7. BINGO!!!!

[hobbit709]

4. Because Jindal wants to do the Crawl To The Bottom.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. LOL!!