{"id":1838,"date":"2013-09-20T13:07:18","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T13:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2022-01-31T22:33:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T22:33:28","slug":"the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. It was also made possible by funding from New World Foundation\u2019s Civic Opportunities Initiative Network. It was originally published by NEWSWEEK<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/h3>\n

<\/em>Long before Sci Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, had graduated its first senior class, the school was being heaped with accolades.<\/p>\n

In September 2010, when Sci Academy was just two years old, its 200 excited students\u2014then all freshmen and sophomores\u2014filed into Greater St. Stephen Baptist church, next door to the school. Together with local dignitaries, journalists, and a brass band, the students watched on jumbo screens as the leaders of six charter schools from around the country appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. At the end of the show, they watched as Oprah handed each charter-school leader\u2014including Ben Marcovitz, Sci Academy\u2019s founder\u2014a $1 million check.<\/p>\n

Sci Academy is a flagship charter school and a model of the new data-driven, business-infused approach to education that has reached its apotheosis in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, education reformers swept away what remained of the traditional public schools in what had been one of the nation\u2019s lowest-performing districts. In their place, charters promised choice and increased accountability. More than 75 percent of New Orleans kids landed in schools controlled by the so-called Recovery School District, which was heavily dominated by charter schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis transformation of the New Orleans educational system may turn out to be the most significant national development in education since desegregation,\u201d wrote Neerav Kingsland, the CEO of New Schools for New Orleans, the city\u2019s leading venture-philanthropy group incubating local charter schools, a year ago. \u201cNew Orleans students have access to educational opportunities that are far superior to any in recent memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

But eight years after Hurricane Katrina, there is evidence that the picture is far more complicated. Seventy-nine percent of RSD charters are still rated D or F by the Louisiana Department of Education. (To be sure, some charter operators argue that the grading system in Louisiana, which keeps moving the bar upward, doesn\u2019t sufficiently capture the improvements schools have achieved.) Sci is one of two RSD high schools to earn a B; there are no A-rated open-admission schools. In a school system with about 42,000 mostly poor African-American kids, every year thousands are out of school at any given time\u2014because they are on suspension, have dropped out, or are incarcerated. Even at successful schools, such as the highly regarded Sci Academy, large numbers of students never make it to graduation, and others are unlikely to make it through college.<\/p>\n

Figuring out what has taken place in the New Orleans schools is not just a matter of interest to local residents. From cities like New York to towns like Muskegon Heights, Michigan, market-style reforms have been widely touted as the answer to America\u2019s educational woes. (A recent editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called for local education reformers to \u201cadopt the Louisiana model.\u201d) New Orleans tells us a lot about what these reforms look like in practice. And the current reality of the city\u2019s schools should be enough to give pause to even the most passionate charter supporters.<\/p>\n

Sci is one of two RSD high schools to earn a B; there are no A-rated open-admission schools in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

WITH ITS chain-link fence and campus of modular buildings\u2014the result of a continuing post\u2013Hurricane Katrina building shortage\u2014Sci Academy doesn\u2019t look much like a model school. Freshmen, wearing the polo shirts and khakis of the school uniform, are required to walk along straight red lines that snake through the school\u2019s breezeways. Placards bearing slogans, such as \u201cNo Short Cuts; No Excuses\u201d and \u201cGo Above and Beyond,\u201d hang overhead.<\/p>\n

Everything at Sci Academy is carefully choreographed to maintain discipline and a laserlike focus on the school\u2019s principal mission, which is to get every student into college. Each morning, at 8 a.m., the teachers, almost all white and in their 20s, gather for a rousing thigh-slapping, hand-clapping, rap-chanting staff revival meeting, the beginning of what will be, for most, a 14- to 16-hour workday. Students arrive a half hour later, and if asked \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d and \u201cWhat will it take?\u201d are expected to respond \u201cTo learn,\u201d followed by a recitation of the school\u2019s six core values: \u201cachievement, respect, responsibility, perseverance, teamwork, and enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both curriculum and behavior are meticulously scripted. As kids file into class, a teacher hands them their \u201centry ticket,\u201d a survey that helps determine how much students retained from the previous class. An \u201cexit ticket\u201d distributed at the end of each class establishes how much kids have absorbed. Information from the exit tickets, as well as attendance, demerits for bad behavior, and \u201cSci bucks\u201d for good behavior, are keyed into the Sci software system by teachers every night to help monitor both student and teacher performance.<\/p>\n

After the storm, the state fired the city\u2019s unionized teachers, who were mostly middle-aged African-Americans, an action that has been challenged in court. While a few schools have hired back teachers who worked in the pre-Katrina schools, the city now relies heavily on inexperienced educators\u2014mostly young, white, and from out of town\u2014who are willing, at least in the short run, to put in grueling hours. But at many schools, including Sci Academy, plenty of teachers last for less than two years. In New Orleans, teachers with certifications from Teach for America number close to 400, five times the level a few years ago. Within the RSD, in 2011, 42 percent of teachers had less than three years of experience; 22 percent have spent just one year or less in the classroom, according to \u201cThe State of Public Education in New Orleans,\u201d a 2012 report by the pro-charter Cowen Institute at Tulane University.<\/p>\n

In part to help with this lack of experience, charter schools train teachers in highly regimented routines that help them keep control of their classrooms. The city\u2019s charter-school advocates argue that in the aftermath of the storm, when charter operators had to scale up quickly, they needed to start with basics: first order and security, then skill building. \u201cKids expect high school to be dangerous. They come to school with their backs up,\u201d explains Sci Academy\u2019s Marcovitz, a graduate of the elite Maret school in Washington, D.C., and Yale University. He says the routines\u2014which are borrowed from methods pioneered by KIPP, a national charter chain that also operates schools in New Orleans\u2014are intended to keep students focused and feeling safe.<\/p>\n

In one English class last fall, a teacher who had been at Sci for about a year held forth on the fine points of grammar, including the subtle difference between modal and auxiliary verbs. As a few heads drifted downward, she employed a popular charter-school management routine to hold the class\u2019s attention. \u201cSPARK check!\u201d she called. The acronym stands for sit straight; pencil to paper (or place hands folded in front); ask and answer questions; respect; and keep tracking the speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeads up, sit straight\u201415 seconds to go,\u201d she said, trying to get her students\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll scholars please raise your homework in THREE, TWO, ONE. We need to set a goal around homework completion. I only see about one third complete homework.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way from the city\u2019s charter-school roots. In the 1990s, the city\u2019s first charter school, New Orleans Charter Middle School, was built on a progressive curriculum that used experiential projects and electives, such as bicycle repair and African dance, to foster a love of learning. The school became the most highly rated nonselective school in the city before it was devastated during Hurricane Katrina. But while its founders went on to create FirstLine, now one of the leading charter operators in New Orleans, the progressive roots of the charter movement have been swamped by the new realities of a competitive charter marketplace.<\/p>\n

Now, driven by both government policy and philanthropic funding\u2014which rewards schools for preparing students for college and penalizes those that don\u2019t\u2014most charter high schools in New Orleans describe themselves as \u201ccollege prep.\u201d This may seem an admirable goal. But in a school system where the number of eighth graders who passed the end-of-course tests required to get into high school has, according to the Cowen Institute, virtually stagnated at about 60 percent, the push toward college leaves behind many of the most disadvantaged kids, who already face enormous hurdles because of poverty, parental abandonment, and one of the highest rates of gun violence in the nation. For some of these students, college is not necessarily a realistic goal.<\/p>\n

Of course, New Orleans had been a troubled school district long before Katrina. While schools were improving before the storm, charter advocates point to a faster rate of improvement in the years since. Yet pre- and post-Katrina comparisons are difficult, in large part because of a surge in funding for charters post-Katrina. (Andre Perry, an expert on education who ran a charter-school network in New Orleans, and Michael Schwam-Baird, an education researcher, estimate that per-pupil funding in the 2006\u201307 and 2007\u201308 school years was about double what it had been in the two years immediately preceding the hurricane and 50 to 100 percent greater than it was for the rest of Louisiana during the same period.)<\/p>\n

One undeniable reality is that negotiating the new charter-dominated system has been complicated for students; it also has favored those who have the most parental support. The luckiest are students like Eddie Barnes, a star at Sci Academy, whose mother was able to navigate the highly confusing application process that, especially in the early years of the RSD, stumped many parents. (Part of what makes the New Orleans school system so complicated is that it is essentially two systems: the smaller, high-performing, mostly selective schools, which were never taken over by the state\u2014though many were converted to charters\u2014and the 60 or so schools within the RSD.)<\/p>\n

Like most of his classmates, Eddie came to Sci Academy after a traumatic post-Katrina odyssey that began when he was 11 and fled the city with his parents and younger brothers, first for Texas and, eventually, Georgia. When Eddie\u2019s mother, Anya Barnes, decided to return to New Orleans in 2008, her husband, the father of her two youngest sons, didn\u2019t join her. So, the family returned to New Orleans fatherless, arriving three months after the start of Eddie\u2019s freshman year. That was during the chaotic first years of the RSD, when parents had to apply to every charter school individually, which led to widespread allegations that schools cherry-picked their students. (Last year the RSD instituted a streamlined application process.)<\/p>\n

Eddie and his mother made the rounds of the few RSD schools that still had openings and eventually found their way to Sci Academy, which had just enrolled its first class. (The two other schools Eddie tried have since been closed or taken over.) Anya Barnes, who had started college but never finished, was \u201cinspired by Sci\u201d and its college-prep mission. Eddie, in turn, was inspired by his mother and, three years later, wrote his college essay about the role she had played in his academic achievements.<\/p>\n

In school, Eddie was a class leader. At 160 pounds and 5 feet 8 inches, he became captain of the fledgling basketball and football teams. He won Mr. Sci Academy, an award given to the student who exemplifies the cooperative values of the school. He was voted prom king. And he excelled academically: in his junior year, Eddie\u2019s standardized test scores met the testing requirements for a scholarship to a Louisiana state school, as well as for a college trip to the East Coast that Sci\u2019s college-placement officer was organizing.<\/p>\n

By the time Eddie and his classmates were ready to graduate in the spring of 2012, the class seemed to offer vindication not only for the school\u2019s no-excuses college-prep approach, but for the entire New Orleans charter model. Almost all the graduating seniors at Sci Academy\u2014close to 95 percent\u2014had been accepted at college. Eddie and a half dozen of his classmates would be returning to the East Coast, where they had won scholarships to attend schools like Middlebury, Wesleyan, Amherst, and Bard.<\/p>\n

Yet, the results were not necessarily all they seemed\u2014for either the Sci Academy kids who won college acceptances or the kids who never made it to graduation.<\/p>\n

At many schools, including Sci Academy, plenty of teachers last for less than two years.<\/p>\n

DURING THE summer of 2010, Sci Academy founder Ben Marcovitz recruited Allie Levey, an assistant dean of admissions at Wesleyan University, to be Sci\u2019s college counselor and to make sure his graduates would get into college. The idea, says Levey, who was 25 at the time, was for him to become a kind of \u201cdouble agent\u201d who knew the ins and outs of admissions at elite colleges, a process he could help top Sci Academy students navigate.<\/p>\n

Like Marcovitz, Levey had attended a D.C.-area private school and an elite college\u2014Sidwell Friends and Wesleyan, in Levey\u2019s case. Marcovitz, says Levey, \u201cwants this to be like a group of people who believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levey, boyish and intense, bought into the Sci Academy approach. At morning meetings, he could always be seen leading fellow faculty members in the motivational chants and rallying students. But the task was daunting from the start. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget the first time they showed me the spreadsheet of the kids\u2019 GPAs and ACT scores going into senior year,\u201d says Levey. \u201cI was like, there\u2019s no way.\u201d The average ACT score was 17, well below the cutoff for a state scholarship, which was 20, in 2012, out of a possible 36. Levey says he was certain he had taken on an impossible task.<\/p>\n

But Levey and Marcovitz were determined. Levey organized college trips, mentored the seniors, and worked the phones to his former college-admissions colleagues. Meanwhile, Sci Academy pulled out the stops when it came to standardized tests. In the spring, classes were regularly suspended for added studying. Seniors who scored below 20 on their ACT spent three weeks being tutored by Alex Gershanik, the local \u201ctest-prep guru,\u201d at a cost, to Sci Academy, of $1,000 per student.<\/p>\n

By the time Sci Academy\u2019s first senior class was about to graduate, Levey\u2019s doubts were deepening\u2014about both the school\u2019s college-for-all mission and the toll his work was having on his personal life. By the following spring, less than two years after joining Sci Academy, Levey decided to resign. \u201cI believe every member of [the] school leadership team deeply in their hearts wants to make this sustainable,\u201d said Levey shortly before submitting his resignation, visibly saddened. \u201cI also know that that\u2019s not possible right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, behind Sci Academy\u2019s impressive college-acceptance rate were some troubling numbers. The school\u2019s first graduating class was 37 percent smaller than the same class had been in the ninth grade\u2014even though some students came to the school after freshman year and filled seats left vacant by departing students. The attrition rate has improved; the class of 2013 was 28 percent smaller than it had been in the ninth grade. But Sci Academy\u2019s out-of-school suspension rate has been rising, reaching 49 percent in 2012, the second highest in the city and one reason kids transferred to other schools. Sci Academy says that its efforts to reduce suspensions by loosening some rules led to increased violence, including weapons on campus, which, in turn, led to a spike in suspensions.<\/p>\n

Even kids who make it through high school and into college face hurdles. While the majority of Sci Academy\u2019s graduates enrolled in four-year colleges in the fall of 2012, over 10 percent had either dropped out or transferred to junior colleges within six months of matriculating. (Marcovitz acknowledges that the school needs to both improve student attrition and help its graduates stay in college. Sci Academy recently appointed \u201ccollege captains,\u201d who will keep in touch with classmates and alert the school to any problems kids are having in college.)<\/p>\n

Another fact that troubled Levey was student debt: the average Sci Academy student, if he or she completes college, will graduate with $22,000 to $27,000 in debt, according to Levey, even if the student is eligible for state or federal aid. Meanwhile, students who drop out will leave with thousands of dollars in loans. Says Levey: \u201cA kid who is barely passing, but qualifies for a four-year college, who really doesn\u2019t have any academic interests\u2014why am I having them mark general studies on their college application, why? Or nursing or chemical engineering?\u201d<\/p>\n

Take the case of a student named Trevon, who, before enrolling at Sci Academy in his senior year, attended two other New Orleans charter high schools. The first declined to reenroll him in his sophomore year. The second was, by most accounts, a chaotic failure and closed after his junior year. Trevon fell behind a grade level and didn\u2019t learn to write a research paper until late in his senior year. As recently as last spring, Trevon wasn\u2019t sure college was for him; he was thinking of enlisting in the Army instead.<\/p>\n

Encouraged by Sci Academy\u2019s college-prep culture and after months of test prep, including a stint with the test-prep guru, Trevon eked out an 18 on his ACT\u2014not enough for a state scholarship. But with a student loan, Trevon finally decided to enroll at Southern University at New Orleans for this fall. Even though the college has one of the nation\u2019s lowest graduation rates\u20148 percent in 2009\u2014Levey steered him and several classmates to SUNO because it is \u201ccheap,\u201d as Levey says; with work-study and living at home, he would have to take out no more than $1,000 or so per year in loans.<\/p>\n

A Sci Academy administrator helped him register and pick a major\u2014entrepreneurship\u2014but two weeks into the fall semester, Trevon, unsure how to navigate a problem with his student loans, had neither purchased his books nor accessed Blackboard, the online portal where professors post class materials.<\/p>\n

THERE IS no plan B in the college-for-all charter universe, in part because both the state\u2019s accountability systems and philanthropists\u2019 expectations are based on how successful the schools are in qualifying kids for college.<\/p>\n

Louisiana\u2019s school grading system rewards those whose students graduate in four years and score well on college-entry tests such as the ACT and advanced-placement tests. It penalizes schools\u2014by giving them lower grades\u2014if students take longer to graduate or perform poorly on the college-placement tests. Schools typically are reviewed every five years, but can be closed down after three if they do not meet the charter\u2019s goals. In the 2010\u201311 school year alone, 10 New Orleans schools were closed or taken over, according to Research on Reforms, a local research and advocacy organization. The process left hundreds of kids in ninth to 12th grades scrambling to find space at a new school.<\/p>\n

Pre- and post-Katrina comparisons are difficult, in large part because of a surge in funding for charters post-Katrina.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, as New Orleans encourages existing charters to take over the last of the schools the RSD directly runs, the charter system is finally being forced to confront the flaws in its one-size-fits-all college-prep model. Some of the city\u2019s charter schools have begun experimenting with alternatives, like vocational programs and so-called alternative schools designed specifically to help students who have struggled in, or dropped out of, school. This spring, John White, Louisiana\u2019s superintendent of education, in a notable departure from the state\u2019s college-for-all mantra, unveiled a proposal to revamp high school diplomas by creating a vocational track that would qualify graduates for technical careers. Although Louisiana already has a \u201ccareer diploma,\u201d it is widely seen as a dead-end certification, because it neither prepares students for college nor provides them with specialized training.<\/p>\n

But for these experiments to work, the incentives will have to change. Under the current accountability criteria, alternative schools will always score an F and will eventually be closed, argues Elizabeth Ostberg, former head of human resources at FirstLine and founder of the NET, a new alternative school that got an F on its first 2012\u201313 report card.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you do this if you care about your school\u2019s accountability score?\u201d asks Jay Altman, the CEO of FirstLine, who gave the NET space at one of his schools during its first year of operation and is now piloting a vocational program as part of a takeover of Joseph S. Clark, a historic but failing high school.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it is widely believed that private donors want to see as many students as possible go to college\u2014an understandable inclination, but one that isn\u2019t helpful for all kids. (Private donors can equal one third of a charter school\u2019s budget: for Sci Academy, in 2011, $1.3 million of its $3.9 million budget came from private donations.) Ostberg, for instance, is convinced that her school was initially denied funding by a major foundation because the school\u2019s mission did not emphasize college prep. It finally got the money, she says, in part by convincing the foundation that if New Orleans is to have a \u201csuccessful education system,\u201d it has to \u201caddress\u201d the kids who aren\u2019t going to college. \u201cIf we build great alternative schools, our college-prep schools will be better,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Many students are still falling through the cracks. In 2010, the year Ostberg received her charter for the NET, an estimated 4,000 teens, about 10 percent of the city\u2019s entire student population, were not in school. (The numbers are hard to pin down. While a Louisiana state report that same year put the dropout rate at 5.7 percent, a 2013 report by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor found that the state\u2019s DOE \u201cno longer conducts on-site audits or reviews that help ensure the electronic data in its systems is accurate.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The premise of the New Orleans charter-school experiment is that charters can educate all children. However, the experience of kids like Lawrence Melrose, another Sci Academy student, does not support that claim. Now 18, Lawrence\u2019s life is a testament to both high levels of social dysfunction, including poverty and violence, and the inability of some charter schools to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged kids.<\/p>\n

It is hard to know when Lawrence\u2019s life began to spin out of control. It may have been when his grandmother who raised him was diagnosed with cancer and he began shuttling back and forth between Georgia, where the family moved after Hurricane Katrina, and his great-uncle Shelton Joseph\u2019s house in New Orleans. It may have been during a basketball game, near his great-uncle\u2019s house, on a hot August day of his 14th year, when another kid shot him in the back, nearly killing him. Or it may have been during his dizzying spin through half a dozen struggling RSD schools in the two years before he enrolled at Sci Academy.<\/p>\n

During the weeks Lawrence spent at Children\u2019s Hospital recovering from his gunshot wound, a report on his neuropsychological state concluded that Lawrence \u201cappears to have the skills necessary to be a productive member of society,\u201d but also that he should continue to receive \u201cspecial-education services at the highest level possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, in 2010, Lawrence enrolled as a freshman at Sci Academy; he had spent two years\u2014with multiple suspensions and expulsions\u2014in the New Orleans system. His first months at Sci Academy were rocky. When the school celebrated Marcovitz\u2019s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show at the church next door, Lawrence was not there; he was kept back in the school\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

In 2010 Lawrence became one of 10 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Louisiana Department of Education, charging that the city\u2019s fragmented education system had resulted in \u201csystemic failures to ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to educational services and are protected from discrimination.\u201d (The SPLC has since petitioned the court to certify the case as a class action suit.)<\/p>\n

Have the pressures and incentive systems surrounding charter schools taken public education in the direction we want it to go?<\/p>\n

Of all the New Orleans schools he had attended, Sci Academy was the first that had tried to grapple with Lawrence\u2019s problems. However, with every RSD charter school serving as its own district and required to provide all services to all kids, Sci Academy apparently did not have the resources to meet all of Lawrence\u2019s needs. The school eventually concluded that he needed an intensive therapy program, but was unable to find one for him; as part of a statewide privatization effort that began a few years ago, Gov. Bobby Jindal had closed the last of the public hospitals that offered residential programs for adolescents with mental disabilities.<\/p>\n

Lawrence spent less and less time at school. At 17, he was arrested for armed robbery; repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial, Lawrence spent a year and a half in jail. He finally pleaded guilty and agreed to a 10-year sentence, minus time already served.<\/p>\n

On a recent Saturday morning, Lawrence sat behind a plexiglas barrier at Orleans Parish Prison, his jaw slightly swollen after it was broken in a jailhouse beating. Lawrence was wearing a bulky, sleeveless \u201csuicide\u201d smock that also covered a knife wound from another incident in the jail. Lawrence isn\u2019t really a suicide risk, explained Chaseray Griffin, Lawrence\u2019s SPLC advocate; placement on the suicide ward, where the inmate\u2019s clothes are taken away, was his best chance of staying safe until he is moved to a state penitentiary.<\/p>\n

Although Lawrence has taken classes in prison, he has not graduated. Yet, when the state of Louisiana calculates its dropout statistics, Lawrence and other incarcerated teens are not included.<\/p>\n

It is tempting to look at Lawrence as an exception. But his case points to problems not only with the quality of individual schools in New Orleans, but also with government oversight and the incentive structure of charter schools. \u201cState monitoring has virtually stopped,\u201d says Margaret Lang, who retired last year as director of intervention services at the RSD. \u201cThe kids who get churned the most are those with the most disabilities and challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New Orleans, critics argue that the pressure to show high test scores and get kids into college, combined with the broad leeway given to charter schools to suspend and expel students, means the \u201cdifficult to teach\u201d kids have been effectively abandoned. \u201cNew ideas on how to teach disruptive and unmotivated students have not emerged from charter schools,\u201d charges Barbara Ferguson, a former superintendent of public schools in New Orleans and a founder of Research on Reforms. \u201cWhether the difficult-to-teach high school students are expelled by charter schools or whether they attended schools closed by the RSD, they are an outcast group, thrown into an abyss … Neither the RSD nor the state Department of Education tracks these students to determine if they ever enter another high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even for students who don\u2019t fall through the cracks or get expelled, it bears asking: have the pressures and incentive systems surrounding charter schools taken public education in the direction we want it to go? Anthony Recasner, a partner in founding New Orleans Charter Middle School and FirstLine, is visibly torn between his hopes for the New Orleans charter experiment and his disappointment in the distance that remains between today\u2019s no-excuses charter-school culture and the movement\u2019s progressive roots. \u201cEducation should be a higher-order exploration,\u201d says Recasner, a child psychologist who left FirstLine in 2011 to become CEO of Agenda for Children, a children\u2019s advocacy organization. bando maps<\/a> The typical charter school in New Orleans \u201cis not sustainable for the adults, not fun for kids,\u201d says Recasner, who is one of the few African-American charter leaders in New Orleans; his own experience as a poor child raised by a single parent mirrors that of most students in the charter schools. \u201cIs that really,\u201d he asks, \u201cwhat we want for the nation\u2019s poor children?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. It was also made possible by funding from New World Foundation\u2019s Civic Opportunities Initiative Network. It was originally published by NEWSWEEK. Long before Sci Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, had graduated its first senior class, the school was being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,38],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. It was also made possible by funding from New World Foundation\u2019s Civic Opportunities Initiative Network. It was originally published by NEWSWEEK. Long before Sci Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, had graduated its first senior class, the school was being...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"New World Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-20T13:07:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-31T22:33:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"652\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andrea Gabor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andrea Gabor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"23 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/\",\"name\":\"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-20T13:07:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-31T22:33:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c1fb7e95450ed21aa7a533f09bfed4f3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg\",\"width\":652,\"height\":394},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/\",\"name\":\"New World Foundation\",\"description\":\"Funding Social Movements\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c1fb7e95450ed21aa7a533f09bfed4f3\",\"name\":\"Andrea Gabor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5e0265890f5f1b355e6b451826089100?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5e0265890f5f1b355e6b451826089100?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Andrea Gabor\"},\"description\":\"Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism at Baruch College\/CUNY.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/newwf.org\/author\/agabornewwf-org\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation","og_description":"This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute. It was also made possible by funding from New World Foundation\u2019s Civic Opportunities Initiative Network. It was originally published by NEWSWEEK. Long before Sci Academy, a charter school in New Orleans, had graduated its first senior class, the school was being...","og_url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/","og_site_name":"New World Foundation","article_published_time":"2013-09-20T13:07:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-31T22:33:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":652,"height":394,"url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Andrea Gabor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Andrea Gabor","Est. reading time":"23 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/","url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/","name":"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale - New World Foundation","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg","datePublished":"2013-09-20T13:07:18+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-31T22:33:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c1fb7e95450ed21aa7a533f09bfed4f3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg","width":652,"height":394},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/the-great-charter-tryout-are-new-orleans-schools-a-model-for-the-nation-or-a-cautionary-tale\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Great Charter Tryout: Are New Orleans Schools A Model For The Nation or a Cautionary Tale"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/","name":"New World Foundation","description":"Funding Social Movements","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c1fb7e95450ed21aa7a533f09bfed4f3","name":"Andrea Gabor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5e0265890f5f1b355e6b451826089100?s=96&d=mm&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5e0265890f5f1b355e6b451826089100?s=96&d=mm&r=pg","caption":"Andrea Gabor"},"description":"Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism at Baruch College\/CUNY.","url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/author\/agabornewwf-org\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/10-Ways.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3vykX-tE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3964,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/3964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newwf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}