Good day CharterFolk.
Continuing in the vein of trying to separate signal from noise, Louisiana’s NAEP results are looking more like a genuine anomaly.
Not just one cycle of improved NAEP results, but several cycles in a row now, taking the state from among the very bottom to the middle of the pack.
Of course, current policymakers clamor to credit recent policy changes.
However, the real substance of this progress is more likely found in the long-term policy shifts the state has been pursuing—the kind of stuff John White talks about at the bottom of this article from The 74.
Louisiana is an anomaly in public education for many reasons.
It has seen among the steepest declines in public education enrollment in the country.
And yet, charter schools have experienced robust growth in recent years, dispelling the notion that charter schools can’t grow when the rest of public education is shrinking.
In addition, the fact that Louisiana’s largest city has become an all-charter school district makes Louisiana even more of an anomaly.
Reports suggest that, relative to where the city was before the storm, academics have improved and gaps have decreased.
One city does not make a statewide NAEP score story, but a city as large as New Orleans relative to the size of the state?
This certainly seems like a topic worth exploring more deeply to discern signal from noise.
Much of the noise in New Orleans of late has focused on the parish getting back into the game of operating schools itself.
It’s doing so at exactly the same moment that reports have emerged showing the parish hasn’t handled its existing financial responsibilities well—mis-forecasting the amount of funding schools were to receive this year, requiring painful mid-year cuts—the kind of thing that puts at risk the long-term progress schools are making on academics.
This has resulted in the superintendent and other top leaders losing their jobs.
Now the parish and the city are fighting with one another about how to make up the shortfall.
This raises a rather straightforward question:
Having not been able to handle its existing financial responsibilities well, is it wise for the parish to step back into the direct operation of schools, where its financial responsibilities will become even greater?
How we orient ourselves to an anomalous situation like this—a school district wanting to get back in the game of operating schools—gives us an opportunity to think anew about what we want all school districts to evolve into.
That is, if the Supreme Court doesn’t ban evolution altogether by redefining public education to be only that which is operated directly by school districts.
Look for us to be returning to this story in upcoming posts.
It’s some of the most important signal to be tuned into amid some of the most distracting noise.