Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in New Orleans
by Nick GillespieBefore hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation. Katrina forced nearly a million people to leave their homes and caused almost $100 billion in damages. To an already failing public school system, the storm seemed to provide the final deathblow. But then something amazing happened. In the wake of Katrina, education reformers decided to seize the opportunity and start fresh with a system based on choice.
Today, New Orleans has the most market-based school system in the US. 60% of New Orleans students currently attend charter schools, test scores are up, and talented and passionate educators from around the country are flocking to New Orleans to be a part of the education revolution. It’s too early to tell if the New Orleans experiment in school choice will succeed over the long term, but for the first time in decades people are optimistic about the future of New Orleans schools.
Approximately 10 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine; hosted by Nick Gillespie; shot by Alex Manning and Dan Hayes; edited by Alex Manning.
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51 Comments
Finally we get to see how a right leaning policy of competition and individualism fares in a Democrat stronghold that doesn't allow that sort of thing.
This is just the type of thing that allows us to break into the Dem plantations…I mean inner cities, and have a positive affect on people that have been held back by their handlers for so long. It's too bad it took a massive natural disaster, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
Sometimes a good cleansing can help. Uniforms are good too.
Spread it across the nation. Kill the tenure teachers have and base it on merit.
Then kill the unions. Kill the unions.
Wow….it is amazing what happens when there is even the slightest blink of competetion against any monopoly. The Citizen Taxpayer is actually able to make a choice where their money goes an where, and how ther kids are educated.
Hey Dem's, you better hurry and put this report on your Media Black Out list along with the oil spill and the war. This news could hurt your agenda!
Wheres Obama on this one? In hiding. As well as his MSM brownshirts.
It may not be vouchers, but seems to be the next best thing..NOrleans children, rising from the ashes in uniforms..
Every American city needs a Katrina, unfortunately.
Geez, don't let Obama hear about this! He stopped the successful Washington, DC Charter schools because he wanted to kiss the teacher's unions collective butt. You can bet your worthless diploma he'll stop this "madness" asap!
Obama and crew make it a habit to ignore anything not in the lefty playbook. Very morally bankrupt foolish people.
As far from Louisiana as he can get. It's a shame LA doesn't border Mexico. They could start building a wall and the Fed Gov't would never know–being as how 100% of their attention is devoted to avoiding any progress with the oil spill.
And this will lead to a better New Orleans with less crime and greater opportunity and prosperity.
Which is the LAST thing the left wants. They want ignorant illiterate drones passed through THEIR system, held captive for 12 years while the unions get their cut of funding, who will end up lifetime wards of the state.
It is no coincidence that public education has degenerated into exactly that in each and every one of the bluest of blue areas, the large urban cities.
Inspiring story. I'm sure the success of New Orleans will cause more localities to follow in its footsteps.
The teachers union just issued a memo saying that "this practice must be stoped". When it was pointed out that "stoped" was the past tense of the verb "stope", meaning to mine ore, the teacher's union referred the matter to the EPA for an environmental impact statement. The EPA, however, would not comment on the issue until the proper form to request all of the forms was filed. They did not, however, have any copies of the form and were ….
You get the idea.
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
[...] results have been very encouraging. As Nick Gillespie explains at Big Government: Today, New Orleans has the most market-based school system in the US. 60% of New Orleans students [...]
Born, raised, and lived all my life in New Orleans. I am constantly reminded of how proud I am of my city.
If you've never been here to visit, you don't know what you are missing. It is one of the most fun and unique places in the U.S. The history, architecture, and culture will amaze you.
And now, we are starting to see signs of being respected for our people as well on a national level. Bobby Jindal is doing wonders for the perceived lack of political ethics that has plagued this state for so long. We have finally ousted the worst mayor this city has ever had in Ray Nagin and replaced him with a native New Orleanian who seems to want to make this city great again. And now our public school system, one of the most historically poor systems in the nation, is showing signs of great improvement.
I never doubted that this city would return bigger and better after the hurricane. If you know the people down here and understand their spirit and love for this city, you would have known that they would never let this city die. Ya'll come see us for yourselves, you won't ever forget it.
My thoughts are that those who were willing to work and fight to make a better NO returned after Katrina. Those who only wanted to be cared for by someone else, stayed away. It's interesting how things trended red after Katrina chased the latter group away.
I hope people are watching and paying attention to the things the NO school system is doing. If they are making the sort of progress and headway that they need to, it's a powerful argument for putting the power back in the hands of parents in other places.
I support school choice, but I don't buy into the notion that schools are the biggest problem in the American educational system. I think the bigger problem is parents (and on a related note, the disintegration of the family). The observation is more true of the black community than others communities, but I think it holds true to a greater or lesser extent everywhere.
In my middle class neighborhood, many kids would sneer at those who did well in school ('acting white'), claim there was so much discrimination that there was no point in trying (which is ridiculous for countless reasons) and would get into stupid stuff because they saw that as 'acting black'. The only thing keeping blacks from attaining the same level of success other groups of students do isn't democrats or whites or teachers (I had a few horrible teachers and a few excellent ones, but most were competent) but the attitude too many of us come to school with.
Charter Schools, from what I've seen, are code words for thinly veiled Black Supremacist schools.
Talkzalot is, from what I've seen, a code word for a thinly veiled moron.
I normally don't respond to anybody with a negative rating for obvious reasons….Your reply should end the responses…dumb down move on should be the only action or re-action to those with a negative rating!!
It's a culture issue, and it isn't just blacks who sneer at the smart kids. We promote the idea that being smart and celebrating your brain is a bad thing as a national culture. Kids are conditioned by media to dislike school almost from the start while parents are portrayed not as celebrating school for what it does for kids but rather simply for getting them out of the house for 8 hours.
That's great to hear. I had the opportunity to visit The Big Easy twice in the months just before Katrina and loved it. Stories like this (and the Saints' victory back in February) make me really hopeful that this unlucky city will bounce back better than ever. It's a great city, Louisiana's a great state, and now that they've both got some proper leadership, maybe we'll see great things come out of there soon.
I have to say, though, regarding your name, I'm a graduate student at Ole Miss, and…nyah, nyah, nyah, we'll beat you again in November
I would like to order a disaster for Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Chester. These school systems are now controlled by the State and get all of the Educational $ with little results. I feel sorry for the kids. They could do better and maybe a disaster could also give THEM a clean slate.
This is true. When I was in public school, in small town Kentucky, no less, I got looked down on for being a "nerd". I ended up finishing in a Catholic private school.
However, it is a HUGE problem that the dominant "urban" pop culture practically glorifies ignorance, illiteracy and non education.
Clearly, they need to bring that walrus, Karen Lewis, in from Chicago to "fix" this situation immediately. We can't have children learning without a union there to drain all the money and promote socialism.
http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/07/08/educat...
Talkzalot is just an aging Klan whore who now spends his days bitching about Jews and free trade.
Wait until the unions get involved. The lickspittle Democrat politicians will cave to their demands and restore tthe N.O. school system to its former glory.
And reward the good teachers. Merit based pay and a quick boot to the losers – and fired means "fired", not "go to some other school" like it does now. That's how we fix our schools.
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
Where are the outraged liberals tearing their hair out about the lack of DIVERSITY in these schools? Oh, that's right, Blacks can have all Black schools. It is just Whites who are not allowed to have all White schools. I like the piano vamping in the background for emotional appeal – always a good sign of an objective news piece.
It's no surprise that choice works. Wonder how long it will take for the unions to stamp it out.
.
Here I go, feeding the troll…
Could it be that New Orleans, demographically, is majority black, MORON ?
Certain communities are almost entirely black.
What an angry, ignorant, ignoramus.
I think your red negative also reflects your IQ.
Example #1 for public schools, right HERE.
It must SUCK to be you.
.
I can't even imagine myself doing this, but I'm going to defend Captain Kickass here.
Damn, that feels weird.
Believe it or not, Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan got himself in trouble a couple of months back for saying that Katrina was the best thing that could have happened to the Orleans Parish school system. Nationally he got drilled for saying it, but Pastorek, the school superintendent in the video (for a Republican governor), and Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu both jumped to his defense.
Generally, Obama has been friendlier to charter schools than one would expect.
Of course, with this guy it's always a mixed bag at best. Because before we start saying he supports school choice we've got to note the shameful way he destroyed the DC voucher program last year.
The state of Louisiana is ALSO running a voucher program in New Orleans. They call it a scholarship program, but it services some 1200 or so kids who go to private and Catholic schools in the city (and New Orleans has some excellent private and parochial schools).
Shaddap, dick.
That's great NEWS.!
Vouchers MAY lead to a groundswell of more values based small schools,
teaching the 3r's not the 3d'd..
I like your "personal description" on your avatar.
Not only are charter schools thriving in NOLA, some parents are taking their kids out of elite private schools and sending them to charter schools because the education is much better.
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
The kid at 8:45 has such a great smile!
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
[...] » Reason.tv: Hurricane Katrina’s Silver Lining – The school choice revolution in N… [...]
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