After Katrina: tales from a chartered school classroom.

In the years before Hurricane Katrina, public education in New Orleans was financially bankrupt and beset with administrative and accounting problems widely characterized as corruption. Before landfall leveled the system completely, the Louisiana State Superintendent of Schools hired Alvarez & Marsal, a corporate firm from New York City specializing in what it calls "turnaround management and corporate advisory services," to run New Orleans public schools, giving them a mandate to recommend changes directly to the State Superintendent. (2) Late last year, as state officials took over 107 of 128 New Orleans public schools (3), the state Board of Education had already devised what one board member calls a "state school accountability model" and began to rank schools internally. Then came the storm. Katrina has been described by the State Superintendent of Schools as something of a "cloud with a silver lining" that has made the reinvention of public education both politically possible and expedient. In the immediate aftermath of Katrina the state determined that those few schools to reopen in New Orleans would reopen as chartered schools. In November, 2005, for instance, the Legislature voted to place 102 public schools considered "low performing" in a state-run "recovery district," leaving only 15 under district control. Of those 15, 8 have already become chartered schools, while 4 were too damaged to reopen this school year. (4) The Superintendent of Schools hopes to attract private funding for chartered schools from the likes of such national notables as KIPP ("Knowledge is Power Program") and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Meanwhile, the language of academic standards, statewide test scores, discipline, individual initiative, and mental ownership has been inserted into the political discourse on public education at every level, as has the promise of private management as a panacea for public rot. Early in 2006 all teachers laid off after Katrina who had not been rehired were permitted to reapply for teaching positions as employees-at-will. Of 500 who reapplied, 250 were eliminated at once for failing to satisfactorily answer a question about why they chose teaching as a livelihood. The remaining applicants were subjected to a written test consisting of math questions reportedly at eighth-grade level, and a short essay on "why I chose a career in teaching," which was corrected for spelling and grammar. Of these 250, 50 flunked, and follow-up interviews reduced the remaining applicants to a pool of 100. (5) The public spectacle of testing the teachers and publicizing their poor grades was touted by critics to show the failure of the old system and the straightjacket of organized labor, even under a weak union. As one news story reported, "... hiring based on merit is a marked change from rules that have bound the New Orleans public school district under its teachers union contract." (6) While "rampant inefficiencies" of the old system have been replaced, greater power has been put in the hands of individual principals, who may--though it's still unclear--have more power to control budgets and design curriculums. Principals also have the autonomy to hire and fire teachers--who, under the charter system, lack even the formerly weak protection of the teachers union--at the end of the coming school year. Not surprisingly, the results of these changes have been internally uneven and are likely to heighten inequalities of class and color within the blighted city. As this goes to press, New Orleans public school officials are debating selective admissions requirements for four schools, and this number may increase. While these four schools were selective before the storm, given the limited number of schools open in the aftermath of Katrina, admissions criteria will widen the gap between haves and have-nots (7), as kids who don't make the cut are consigned to recovery districts where the "lowest performing" schools were taken over by the state. As the admissions game creates segregation, schools that don't play the game will become what one Board member describes as a "dumping ground." (8) Chris Mayfield, a high school English teacher in New Orleans before and after Katrina, reflected on the fallout from a personal and practical standpoint. At the time we met in January 2006, Mayfield, who has been without an apartment since the hurricane and is camping out at the home of a colleague, sat grading a large stack of student papers on a Saturday afternoon in a cafe in the Algiers school district. These are her thoughts on current inequalities within the New Orleans chartered school system. I first came to New Orleans in 1986, and I've been teaching in the public schools in New Orleans for 12 years ... I was at Lusher School for 5 years, where I was an eighth grade language arts instructor. After that I spent a one-year sabbatical in India. I was at Lusher until last year.

At the beginning of this year [Fall 2005] I moved to become a teacher of remedial reading at the Signature Center. There, I was teaching Title One with kids below grade level in reading, primarily tenth graders. In the days leading up to landfall I was screening and scheduling students and listening to them read. I had screened some 30 students and had lots more to go.

They are fabulous kids even though they have reading problems. I asked all my students who were unable to read--and I mean really unable to read, simple words--if they would be willing to forego an elective for additional reading instruction. Every student said absolutely yes, they would gladly give up an elective to take remedial reading. I left school with the student folders under my arm, and on Sunday ! left town with these same folders, expecting to return to school and the students shortly.

After Katrina, the Signature School was totally ruined. When I returned to the school in January--somebody had a key, and we were able to enter the building--people had been living on the second floor in my classroom. There was human shit all over the floor, and empty soup cans. But none of the Dell computers in the classroom had been so much as touched.

I spent the months after Katrina in North Carolina, where I have family, returning on January 6th. I talked to someone at Walker about a job and I came back with the assurance that a job would be waiting for me, which it was. I am now teaching tenth and twelfth graders at Walker. Some kids in my classes are reading well below grade level and can't write; others are emotionally disturbed; any number of students work nights, and some are on their own without parents around. I've got one student working the nightshift at "Rally's," and even though I don't let students sleep in my classroom, for the life of me I can't wake her up. Another student tells me she has fluid in her lungs; she's living alone, and I suggested she get medical care. "Ms. Mayfield," she asked me, "now, who's going to take me to see a doctor?"

I ... complained to Alvarez and Marsal that my principal had made me a sub, and was told ... that the principal has no authority over employment determinations like whether an English teacher can be classified as a substitute and paid a pittance. I said, "I guess this is why we had union contracts," and I was told by them, quote unquote, "we don't want anything to do with the unions because we want teachers who are there for the kids."

... Under the charter school system, we no longer have a union contract. Under the union contract we would have ten minutes of "duty" in the morning and ten in the afternoon; or maybe we'd have lunch duty, and in any event there was some duty each day, and generally your lunch was your own time. Now, we have hours of duty. At Walker, we have some two hours of duty each day; the day starts at 8 am and ends at 4, and there's talk that we may be forced to come in to school on Saturdays. I get to work at 7. Sunday is spent grading student work and class planning. As for faculty meetings, which were once regulated by contract, they are no longer, and we can have meetings whenever.

They think that to have good schools they just open up a vein and drain your blood directly into your students. That's the way it is.

It's true that academically bankrupt schools certainly existed; but the other side of that story is that Tony Amato, the former school superintendent, really turned things around. In retrospect, his tenure was the golden age. Mr. Amato required an uninterrupted literacy block for every student and he trained the teachers, all of us, in teaching literacy. I learned a lot from Mr. Amato. And as a result of his work, test scores went way up. True, there may have been some financial mismanagement under Mr. Amato, but he did great, great work. He was serious about teacher training and professional development. It was a real mistake to have gotten rid of Mr. Amato.

But the power structure in this town does not want well-educated kids.... The power structure, which by the way is not all white but is black and white, wants to produce people who can work in the service sector, and nothing more. As for the transition to charter schools, the consensus among rank and file union members is that they've wanted to go exclusively charter for quite some time, and Katrina was their chance. Charter schools are not innately odious. Think of Deborah Meier, who started some charter schools in Harlem; small can be effective, and I am certainly not opposed to alternative models. But the bottom line is that they should not be exclusive, and the problem with charter schools is that without open enrollment they are inherently inequitable.

O. Perry Walker is the ghetto school in this hierarchy, and Karr is the upper echelon. Harte is getting there. I'm told there are staffing differences. I have 42 students, though I understand Walker is about to hire another English teacher, which will lighten my load.

"Autonomy?" There is no autonomy. The school has no budget. Period. No supplies; not so much as a paper clip. There are kids who cannot read, and no plan for them. I have students in the tenth grade who cannot read the word "heartbeat."

I've got the tenth graders writing their memoirs; they say they can keep on writing, since there's so much to say. And I have them reading from "The Neighborhood Story Project," which Game out shortly before Katrina and which describes neighborhoods which are no more. There are huge attendance and class-cutting problems these days, which are not being addressed in any systematic way whatsoever. Ms. Laurie has a mandatory morning assembly for teachers and students, which may sound like a good idea, but she can't be heard, even though she yells, and so students talk through assembly and then Ms. Laurie screams at the teachers to make the students be quiet. (9)

During the day she yells orders over the school PA loudspeaker. Lunch goes on for way too long, and then she sends a security guard to announce lunch is over and sweep the hallways to make sure the students are in class. All of this is happening quite suddenly as Ms. Laurie is shouting into the PA: "Students, get to your classrooms: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Teachers, lock your doors. Do not allow students to enter!" But we have no locks on our doors. And get this, the principal of my school, who praises the students on one hand, tells them that if they don't conform to the rules, they can leave, and that for their spot there are two to three students who would gladly take their place. "And you will have no place to go!" she tells them.... she's started expelling students and telling them not to return to school without a parent. This is done ad hoc, with no disciplinary procedures, no hearing office as there used to be, no student advocate as there used to be, and it seems rather capricious. Every day there is a new "Do Not Admit" list, and students are being put onto the street.

Meanwhile, there is a waiting list of 80 students who want to get into Walker High and have to wait. What sense is that? This is supposed to be a public school, and students are being turned away to wait on the street.

We don't have appropriate books for teaching English; Ms. Laurie has provided us with some books from the middle school, but they're not developmentally at age level and I can't use them. I have only textbooks and mimeographs.

It saddens me so. Here's this entity that we love so much--New Orleans --but I don't see a positive outcome from the Katrina catastrophe. It's like loving someone with a terminal illness.

The feeling I get from the charter school movement in Algiers is that there are no rules; there are no checks and balances; there is no hearing office; no teacher's union; we don't even know how we're supposed to be grading students. The treatment of students by the administration is totally ad hoc, and this is not changing. Yes, it's true what I said earlier, that the schools within the parish had been balkanized, and within them, the classrooms have been balkanized. You just go into your classroom and hope for the best.

NOTES

(2) Alvarez & Marsal had its contract extended in March, 2006, though their duties are to be slowly turned over to full-time charter association staff members. "Charter Schools Extend Contracts," Times Picayune, March 29, 2006.

(3) "School System May Limit Admissions," Times-Picayune, May 18, 2006.

(4) "Two More Schools Opening Next Month," Times-Picayune, January 29, 2006, B3.

(5) "Five Charters in Algiers Set to Open Today," Times- Picayune, December 14, 2005.

(6) "Five Charters in Algiers Set to Open Today."

(7) "School System May Limit Admissions," Times-Picayune, Thursday, May 18, 2006.

(8) "School System May Limit Admissions."

(9) Mayfield reports recently that morning meeting at O. Perry Walker is less harrowing than it was six months ago.

NICOLE POLIER (1)

(1) Thanks to Jed Horne of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Chris Mayfield, Richard Ohmann, and Saul Slapikoff for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft. This discussion is based on interviews in fall 2005 and winter 2006 with New Orleans school board members, the State Superintendent of Schools, teachers, parents, and community activists.