"No Excuses" in New Orleans

[ksen]

"No Excuses" in New Orleans

This is the first installment in our two-part series looking at charter schools in New Orleans and Detroit. The juxtaposition is no accident — these two cities have the highest percentage of charters in the country.

In New Orleans, charters have almost entirely replaced traditional public schools; in Detroit, about half the schools are charters. Both cases show the perils of privatization and the way in which elites manipulate crisis to transform social goods.

This is just one area where, as the article puts it, "elites manipulate crisis to transform social goods."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They're slinging so much different mud that it feels like an attempt to see what sticks.

 

[Jayjay]

I'm too lazy to read the whole article right now. What exactly are those "perils of privatization" in this case?

 

[Bronzeage]

I read it. The Charter School classrooms sound like the elementary school classrooms of the 60's, which I remember very well. The major difference is the absence of corporal punishment. There seems to be some anxiety about the kind of person these children will grow up to be. It's a strange worry about the effects of regimentation. As a product of a regimented school philosophy, I can testify, results are not guaranteed. These schools take the regimentation(including walking in orderly fashion in the hallways) and use it as a reward and denial of reward system. As I said, they can't be spanked, so something else had to be found.

In the “new” New Orleans, students are denied the opportunity to develop the skills and dispositions of engaged citizenship, and parents and communities are denied the opportunity to democratically engage in the governance of their public institutions.

I'm not sure what the "the skills and dispositions of engaged citizenship" are for a seven year old. As I recall, it meant saying the Pledge of Allegiance and not interrupting when someone else was talking.

The writer is a malcontent. I would invite him to create his own charter school and use his own particular educational philosophy. I'm sure there is more than one way to produce skilled and well disposed citizens.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I read it. The Charter School classrooms sound like the elementary school classrooms of the 60's, which I remember very well. The major difference is the absence of corporal punishment. There seems to be some anxiety about the kind of person these children will grow up to be. It's a strange worry about the effects of regimentation. As a product of a regimented school philosophy, I can testify, results are not guaranteed. These schools take the regimentation(including walking in orderly fashion in the hallways) and use it as a reward and denial of reward system. As I said, they can't be spanked, so something else had to be found.

In the “new” New Orleans, students are denied the opportunity to develop the skills and dispositions of engaged citizenship, and parents and communities are denied the opportunity to democratically engage in the governance of their public institutions.

I'm not sure what the "the skills and dispositions of engaged citizenship" are for a seven year old. As I recall, it meant saying the Pledge of Allegiance and not interrupting when someone else was talking.

The writer is a malcontent. I would invite him to create his own charter school and use his own particular educational philosophy. I'm sure there is more than one way to produce skilled and well disposed citizens.

were you a student in the 1960s or a teacher?

 

[Bronzeage]

I read it. The Charter School classrooms sound like the elementary school classrooms of the 60's, which I remember very well. The major difference is the absence of corporal punishment. There seems to be some anxiety about the kind of person these children will grow up to be. It's a strange worry about the effects of regimentation. As a product of a regimented school philosophy, I can testify, results are not guaranteed. These schools take the regimentation(including walking in orderly fashion in the hallways) and use it as a reward and denial of reward system. As I said, they can't be spanked, so something else had to be found.



I'm not sure what the "the skills and dispositions of engaged citizenship" are for a seven year old. As I recall, it meant saying the Pledge of Allegiance and not interrupting when someone else was talking.

The writer is a malcontent. I would invite him to create his own charter school and use his own particular educational philosophy. I'm sure there is more than one way to produce skilled and well disposed citizens.

were you a student in the 1960s or a teacher?

Yes, I was a teacher in the sixties, but very well preserved for my age. Just kidding.

I started first grade in September 1963, in Vicksburg, MS. I graduated from high school in May 1975, in Baton Rouge, LA. Corporal punishment was still allowed at that date, although I am sure it was reserved for male students.