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A Teachable Moment
August 31, 2008Leigh Dingerson, CCC's Education Team Leader, responds to an article in the New York Times Magazine on New Orleans' Schools post-Katrina.
What’s missing from Paul Tough’s portrait of the New Orleans public schools is the public. Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District, concedes that it’s easier to run a school system without it: no elected school board, no community groups demanding better performance, no collective bargaining agreements.
Indeed, the hallmark of a competitive model is that it dismantles collective will: I’ll get what’s best for my child; forget the others. Many charter schools restrict access through admissions requirements (New Orleans has a disproportionate number of selective admissions charters compared to other cities) and “covenants” required for enrollment. They also push students out through “voluntary withdrawal” requests.
Severely underresourced public schools become the necessary backup system to serve disproportionate numbers of special-needs and troubled children. In the “new” New Orleans, communities have been shut out of the planning and decision-making process. Concerns about lack of access, lack of respect and growing disparities fall on deaf ears.
There are more than 30 independent entities now running New Orleans schools. If the market fails to deliver, will the corporate and foundation choreographers of this new model be accountable to parents and students? Or is the public just an “institutional obstacle,” as Vallas implies?
LEIGH DINGERSON
Washington
