Has it always been in charter schools? I’m not a fan as a proponent of real public education. I should also add that when I was a kid, I took buses until I started driving regularly at 15-1/2 and they were not AC’d back then. Schools, of course, were. Buses are now and have been for decades.
The switch to charter school was made post Katrina. All the teachers had to reapply for their jobs.
Without knowing more specifics that sounds crazy to me. Charter schools destroy public education. They are in Florida where they basically didn’t exist 25 years ago.
I don't know if that was the entire point or just lagniappe, but I'm sure it was part of the plan.
This whole thing totally baffled me and I found a very interesting recent article on it. Definitely a unique situation.
Very unique. I don’t think it helped the school kids in New Orleans. But I also couldn’t voice my opinion freely when we were there.
The article seems to indicate that the before status was horrible and needed to be fixed. The fix worked to some degree. But now they are realizing the faults that are in the fix. Also one very telling sentence: the quality of school still very much depends on socioeconomic status.
No, the school system was not great beforehand. But they used the storm as an opportunity to do what they wanted. So many schools have failed and closed mid year. It’s heartbreaking.
I can only imagine! There is also mentioned that some schools pushed lower performing students out in order to improve their testing average to avoid getting closed. Seems pretty harsh! I find it interesting though that there seems an acknowledgment now that they might have gone too far.
About halfway through the NPR article and I am skeptical. The system is about 1/3 smaller, and many of the students who left permanently were from poorer less-stable families. Also the system was able to address a huge backlog of renovation and deferred maintenance thanks to $2 billion from FEMA,
meaning students were learning in better environments than they had had in years, possibly ever in some places. And you say that test scores and graduation rates are up because of charters. Interesting causation, dude. 2/2
I also think especially for elementary school it’s beneficial for it to be localized. Not just for the whole transport problem, but for social reasons, too.