NEPC Review: The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State

In The Louisiana Recovery School District: Lessons for the Buckeye State, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute criticizes local urban governance structures and presents the decentralized, charter-school-driven Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans as a successful model for fiscal and academic performance. Absent from the review is any consideration of the chronic under-funding and racial history of New Orleans public schools before Hurricane Katrina, and no evidence is provided that a conversion to charter schools would remedy these problems. The report also misreads the achievement data to assert the success of the RSD, when the claimed gains may be simply a function of shifting test standards. The report also touts the replacement of senior teachers with new and non-traditionally prepared teachers, but provides no evidence of the efficacy of this practice. Additionally, the report claims public support for the reforms, but other indicators&mdash;never addressed in the report&mdash;reveal serious concerns over access, equity, performance, and accountability. Ultimately, the report is a polemic advocating the removal of public governance and the replacement of public schools with privately operated charter networks. It is thin on data and thick on claims, and should be read with great caution by policymakers in Ohio and elsewhere.</p

From Katrina to COVID-19: How Disaster, Federal Neglect, and the Market Compound Racial Inequities

Through history, storytelling, and political analysis, this report illustrates how the government neglect that disproportionately affected communities of color during Hurricane Katrina is again evident during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, with similar devastating results. The experience of Katrina, then, has policy implications for the current moment, including concerns over profiteering and who will have a voice in rebuilding communities disproportionately affected by economic shutdown and school closures. Policymakers are urged to act on the report's race-conscious, equity-focused recommendations spanning health, education, housing, labor, and democratic governance.</p

Buras, Kristen L., Rightist Multiculturalism: Core Lessons on Neoconservative School Reform. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Provides a thorough review and critique of E. D. Hirsh\u27s Core Knowledge Movement; specifically challenges its neoconservative definition of multiculturalism

Buras, Kristen L., Questioning Core Assumptions: A Critical Reading of and Response to E. D. Hirsch\u27s The Schools We Need and Why We Don\u27t Have Them, Harvard Educational Review, 69(Spring, 1999), 67-93.*

Presents a systematic analysis and criticism of Hirsch\u27s assumptions behind his proposed Core Knowledge Curriculum

Apple, Michael W., and Kristen L Buras, eds., The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Offers perspectives on U. S. education from non-dominant and oppressed groups such as those oriented around the Core Knowledge Movement, home schooling, vouchers for African-Americans,indigenous and Chicano youth, the racially and sexually abused, those claiming academic freedom in the corporate academy,and those excluded by global cosmopolitanism, with additional examples from Taiwan and Brazil; includes analytic introductory and closing chapters

Buras, Kristen L., and Michael W. Apple, Introduction, pp.1-39 in The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Gives comprehensive context for understanding the ten studies that follow the introduction; defines subaltern communities and how they speak and act in education; analyzes issues of voice, identity, and whose knowledge is most valued

New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? (Grassroots Lessons Learned, 2005-2012)

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, co-chair of the Senate Public Charter School Caucus inWashington, DC, hosted a forum for education policymakers. It centered on New Orleans-StyleEducation Reform: A Guide for Cities (Lessons Learned, 2004-2010), a report published by thecharter school incubator New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). Through human capital andcharter school development, the report asserts, New Orleans has become a national leader ineducation reform. In this essay, members of Urban South Grassroots Research Collective,including education scholars and those affiliated with longstanding educational and culturalorganizations in New Orleans, reveal that such reform has been destructive to African Americanstudents, teachers, and neighborhoods. Inspired by critical race theory and the role of experientialknowledge in challenging dominant narratives, authors draw heavily on testimony fromcommunity-based education groups, which have typically been ignored, regarding the inequitableeffects of New Orleans’ school reform. While the Guide for Cities is used as a sounding board forconcerns and critiques, this essay challenges claims that have circulated nationally since 2005—ones that laud New Orleans as a model to be followed. This essay also charts the elite policynetwork that has shaped the city’s reform, with NSNO playing a central part, in order to revealthe accumulative interests of education entrepreneurs. A postscript illustrating parent and studentresistance to charter school reform in New Orleans reminds urban communities elsewhere thatcurrent reforms are not a guide but a threat to those struggling for racial and educational justice

New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? (Grassroots Lessons Learned, 2005-2012)

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, co-chair of the Senate Public Charter School Caucus inWashington, DC, hosted a forum for education policymakers. It centered on New Orleans-StyleEducation Reform: A Guide for Cities (Lessons Learned, 2004-2010), a report published by thecharter school incubator New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). Through human capital andcharter school development, the report asserts, New Orleans has become a national leader ineducation reform. In this essay, members of Urban South Grassroots Research Collective,including education scholars and those affiliated with longstanding educational and culturalorganizations in New Orleans, reveal that such reform has been destructive to African Americanstudents, teachers, and neighborhoods. Inspired by critical race theory and the role of experientialknowledge in challenging dominant narratives, authors draw heavily on testimony fromcommunity-based education groups, which have typically been ignored, regarding the inequitableeffects of New Orleans’ school reform. While the Guide for Cities is used as a sounding board forconcerns and critiques, this essay challenges claims that have circulated nationally since 2005—ones that laud New Orleans as a model to be followed. This essay also charts the elite policynetwork that has shaped the city’s reform, with NSNO playing a central part, in order to revealthe accumulative interests of education entrepreneurs. A postscript illustrating parent and studentresistance to charter school reform in New Orleans reminds urban communities elsewhere thatcurrent reforms are not a guide but a threat to those struggling for racial and educational justice