New Orleans charter schools should learn from the Los Angeles Unified School District

The Problem

 

83 out of 86 public schools in New Orleans are charter schools– and the remaining three are specialty schools. Ever since Hurricane Katrina’s damages forced public schools to go charter and accept non governmental funding, high schools in New Orleans rarely have the typical tropes of the American high school in their size, curriculum, function and culture.The black community in New Orleans especially has less access and opportunity for academic mobility.

 

The Louisiana Association of Public Schools notes that charter schools differ from public schools traditionally for 3 reasons: Parents select the school their child attends, charter schools have flexibility around curricula and who they hire, and they are held accountable by a nonprofit community board who can elect to close a low-performing school. 

 

The absence of public schools can be attributed to Paul Vallas, a mayor of New Orleans and champion of charter schools whose effect was detrimental. He started the KIPP (Knowledge is Power) schools, boasting that he “Implemented reforms that created the nation’s first 100 percent parental choice district, with all schools public, non-selective and nonprofit.” Vallas has moved on to Philladelphia and Chicago to rebuild their school districts according to his dangerous agenda. “Parental choice” implies the power of privilege in deciding where each student attends school. 

 

In 2005, Louisiana schools ranked between 43 and 46 federally for its public schools based on a myriad of measures of student achievement, and out of all parishes in Louisiana, New Orleans schools were ranked 67th. Apparent by decaying buildings and a 75% student body with subsidized school lunches, meaning a vast majority of public school students were poor. Only 3% were white.  

 

Even pre-Katrina schools provided a limited education to Gentilly raised Tony Petite, who moved to Denver in the mass exodus evacuation from New Orleans in 2008. Miller-McCoy Academy for Mathematics and Business, a charter school in New Orleans, recruited Tony after his return to the city, because he was now too competitive a student for the school he attended prior. The charter school was more rigorous, and had uniforms and was very attractive to his parents, who went to New Orleans public schools. The idea that teachers actually cared and rules were actually enforced was very attractive to them. There was hope that Tony could get to college. 

 

Charter schools like Miller-Mckoy give the illusion to participating families that the school is basically public, because of its free price point. But charter schools are exclusive and require an application, which public schools do not. This means that though there are good charter schools for a free cost, there is a lottery selection process and many students are stuck in less than ideal schools. 

 

The issue is that there are a lack of publicly funded schools in New Orleans, and these schools are ones which have transformed from government-organized, taxpayer funded schools to zip, zero, nada– only non governmentally associated schools. According to Joseph L. Boselovic, of Loyola University’s institute for quality and equity in education, “the Orleans Parish School District presided over a public education system wherein students were substantially poorer than students across Louisiana as well as the nation more generally, consisting of a population that was 93.4% African American (Casserly, 2006). The demographics of the student body of those in the city’s public schools ‘translated into an enrollment that was more than twice as poor and about five times as Black as that of the average school system nationwide’ (Casserly, 2006, p. 200). Despite the  Defining Pre-Katrina New Orleans’ general decline of the city, though, the public schools were beginning to show some hints of improvement in the years before Katrina.”  The school board preceding the Hurricane was actively making plans and amendments to the public school system that got deprioritized after Katrina. New Orleans youth are left with less money, fewer options, and a less clear path for academic success due to governmental neglect. 

 

New Orleans schools are divided into three categories: public, private and catholic, which is a direct reflection of its 36% catholic population.  

 

The best schools in New Orleans are known to be Benjamin Franklin and Lusher Charter. But the process to be admitted to these schools– the OneApp algorithmic application, is highly flawed, and places students with money at an advantage. Haynes Charter school in Lakeview only had a 16% rate of admission, which is comparable to elite universities around this country, but not elementary schools. The students who live nearby the school who don’t get in have to commute to lower-ranked schools.  This has resulted in a rankings system of A, B and C schools, A schools being the most high ranked charters and Cs the lowest. The A schools are more competitive and rich families buy their children into them, which exacerbates the issue because these schools also are much better funded by non-governmental entities and can afford quality educators and programs. C schools depend only on governmental funding and provide substandard education, and since they’re still technically charters, they struggle to enforce attendance policies, and have lower graduation rates with very few consequences. 

 

Henderson Lewis Jr, the superintendent of NOLA Public Schools stated that the OneApp program “empowers our families to select and apply to the schools that best meet the needs of their children.” But exclusion is the large result. Students’ mobility and college acceptance is dictated by the high school they attend. Students whose parents are salaried as university employees get preference for reserved spots from high schools as well, which seems unfair because their parents’ job places them at an advantage. “Leftover” students who don’t meet any filter that gives them priority at a high school are funneled into any less desirable schools that still have room on their roster. 

 

This is an issue specific to New Orleans because many high schools transitioned from public to charter after hurricane katrina, and no other part of the country has such small schools as a standard, and these issues are totally exacerbated by unfortunate environmental factors because “While it is true that for decades the children of New Orleans toiled in a substandard school system, they have also continually faced countless other obstacles to success — inadequate health care, poorly educated parents, exposure to high rates of violent crime and a popular culture that often denigrates mainstream achievement.”

 

A viral tweet from Lyndsey Joyce says it all: “There are no more public schools in New Orleans. I don’t know how else to help folks understand Paul Vallas’ horrific record. There. are. no. more. public. schools. in. New. Orleans. Because of Paul Vallas.” Paul Vallas and others have commented on this tweet, attempting to debunk it by arguing that charter schools are actually public. But, they simply aren’t.

 

The Solution

 

Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country of 10 million residents, possesses 1302 public schools– and for such a populous state, they hold a ranking of 36th nationally, which is impressive. With natural disasters permeating like major earthquakes and poor infrastructure like the crumbling public transportation system as well as the homelessness crisis, public schools have risen to the test to be inclusive and constantly improving, rather than declining in performance. 

 

Los Angeles is broken up into a bunch of micro-cities, some with their own laws, police department, and city council and each with their own school district and school board. Culver City, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills are examples of these micro-cities with their own school districts, and the unincorporated parts of Los Angeles proper that surround them like a block of swiss cheese with holes have their own designated areas of school districts. This means that people that live in a neighborhood are entitled to attend their local public school. Property taxes range depending on where in LA one lives, but these go towards funding the local district. In Which means that not all districts are equally ranked. But, higher ranked districts have a sophisticated bus-in system which means that people from anywhere can apply to be bussed in and commute to higher ranked public schools. 

 

Los Angeles public schools bus in students from outside of publicly well-funded school districts to those schools, allowing them to have a direct path to opportunity, education and success while still going to a public school, providing low income housing in areas walking distance from great public schools, and not overcrowded underfunded public schools.

 

Public schools also heavily encourage community college as an alternative to expensive private universities, and feed into Santa Monica college and West LA college, which are two of the highest ranked community colleges in the country that also have direct transfer plans to USC and UCLA, as well as Cal-states. 

 

Though Los Angeles schools have a 6/10 ranking according to Public School Review, it still has a better school district than 50% of the state, as compared to New Orleans having the worst schools in the state of Louisiana.  

 

Magnet schools in Los Angeles like New West Charter High School and Alexander Hamilton High School serve a unique purpose, which is to provide magnets for students specifically interested in their programs. Hamilton has magnets for the humanities, arts and business, and its attendees are from 100 different Los Angeles zip codes, but completely by choice.  Students can elect to attend these schools, but must apply and be accepted. New West boasts a more rigorous curriculum for the West LA host neighborhood, hence it being a charter school and accepting external funding, it has the size and feeling of a private, elite school even though it is tuition free. 

 

One of Los Angeles’ strongsuits is inclusion of homeless students in public schools in confidentiality. There are more than 51,000 homeless students attending LA public schools, including students who are living on the street, in tents, or at friends’ houses for economic reasons,  and 7,000 fostered kids in public school. In addition to assigning therapists to economically disadvantaged students with chronic absenteeism, often homeless students with jobs, the district has changed the outlook on absenteeism from punishable, to more of a concern of the students actual mental health, and “In alignment with the Superintendent’s plan, the Homeless Education Office addresses the mental health and wellness of our school communities by leveraging existing external partnerships to increase access to basic needs for students and families,” according to a district spokesperson. Los Angeles public schools are literally mitigating the issues associated with growing up homeless, by providing access to menstrual products, food stamps, and mental health support. This goes to show that having great public education is at the root of many other social issues, and it is worth the work.

 

Of course, being an insanely spread out city with a massive population as well as a huge segregation problem has led to limitations in its school district, including periodic strikes by teachers for fair salaries. Mayor Garcetti actively addressed the threats of strikes by the teachers union at Robert F. Kennedy Community schools, noting his compassion for the education system and willingness to negotiate a new contract with LA teachers. 

 

After the most recent devastating earthquake in Los Angeles, the 1994 Northridge Quake, which caused the city $20 billion worth of damage which is comparable to the damage of Hurricane Katrina. As anyone who’s undergone a devastating event such as these knows well, “damage is usually described through losses and descriptions of damaged facilities, but in the end, it is people, businesses, institutions, and government that pay the price.” Mass destruction to high schools valley led to 1,600 students being displaced across the country, returning to a different school building or intact church the following semester. The traumatic event happened and schools were rebuilt. Or non-schools served as temporary ones. None of the damage done required the transfer of funds dedicated to schools, to go towards infrastructure repair. 

 

Application

 

The first step in uprooting the tragic school system in New Orleans will be forbidding the mere concept of a charter school, and requiring rigorous steps to acquire a charter permit. Such steps to require a permit will include there being at least two other public schools in the area, and there must be a magnet that the school will specialize in if it can be chosen, whether that be music, art, college preparation, or general rigor. All schools in New Orleans with the exception of longstanding private and catholic schools which aren’t problematic, are now public. No more milieu of unnecessary charters. 

 

Next, small micro-districts will be set up in each part of the town, reverse-gerrymandered to incorporate diverse micro-sections of geographic New Orleans. For example, one school district will incorporate the uptown and lower garden areas. One will incorporate Mid City and gentilly. One will incorporate the CBD and the Treme, and one will incorporate the Bywater and St. Claude. Each of these districts will be ethnically diverse but geographically succinct, concise, traversable and accessible. Each school district will contain several public elementary schools and one or two middle and high schools. School buildings in existence will also dictate the lines drawn to separate these school districts to ensure that enough schools are included in each one. 

 

OneApp will be abolished and students will automatically be admitted to their local public school which will also more ideally be walking distance from their home. Students families can also elect to petition to send their students to a private school or home school, or a non district school if it is near the parents’ workplace or for some other reason more convenient. Students attending schools in the locations of their neighborhood will build community and the areas will subsequently be considered safer. 

 

Limitations that make this solution a bit more challenging are specific to New Orleans, and its need to address poor infrastructure, the streets, a decentralized and uncredible local government, natural disaster mitigation and relief, crime, and a crumbling healthcare system… the list goes on. Taxpayer dollars going to all of these issues in an already comparatively poor American city in a state ranked lowest in many of the aforementioned categories in the countries means that there are limited resources as well to fund a new charter-free school district, hence why schools haven’t been publicly funded since Katrina. A question arises of where the money will come from, and the answer is that with a better education system, the city will become less poor. More people in a quality education system is genuinely the first step in bridging all of these other infrastructural issues. Property taxes to fund schools in the new school district setup will be a necessary step to forge a backbone to pickup the rest of the broken pieces in the city. 

 

Something I will not incorporate from the application of the Los Angeles solution is the bussing system. Bussing students around from lower privileged areas to well funded school districts works in LA, but only because of the highly gerrymandered school districts. Districts in LA are extremely segregated by wealth and race. In New Orleans the new school districts will incorporate non gerrymandered combinations of neighborhoods, and there won’t be a need for bussing. In such a walkable and transitable city, the amount of students forced to commute by car to school because of the existing system is environmentally nonsensical. 

 

Additionally, Metairie and Chalmette and Mandeville and other suburbs outside of New Orleans proper will not be in the picture for this solution. They will maintain their own school districts and New Orleans kids will not be expected to ride a bus to the suburbs. These districts already have both well funded schools and experienced less loss and damage to the 2008 Hurricane, so they should not even be considered as a part of the school system in New Orleans. 

 

A final component of this solution will be to establish local school boards under a large city wide school board. The superintendent of the city would answer to the more localized school boards for more effective and specialized problem solving. Instead of investing all resources into solving one citywide educational issue, local issues can be targeted on more micro levels in the city.