The debate that has swirled around the overhaul of New Orleans public schools during the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina “is, in most ways, the national debate” over school choice and education reform.
That’s a key point made by Tulane University researcher Doug Harris in this short presentation he gave at a recent event at the Albert Shanker Institute. The issues, from a focus on quantifiable student outcomes to the proliferation of charter schools and vouchers, resonate all over the country. And the central philosophical divide is the same. This is one reason the sweeping transformation of a midsize urban school district has gotten so much attention from outsiders.
The dynamics of the debate are also similar. Supporters of the reforms point to improved student achievement. Opponents question the results — and the methods by which they were achieved. Both sides avoid inconvenient truths.
With that in mind, the 10 slides from Harris’ Shanker presentation provide a handy guide to which arguments over New Orleans education reforms actually stand up to scrutiny.
In short: The reforms have clearly help lift student achievement. The evidence “points strongly in this direction,” and the results are “very large,” even compared with other policy options.
That said, the implementation of the reforms has been “undemocratic” in some ways and has “deepened racial wounds.” During the Shanker event, Harris said the overhaul has been “pretty awful and ugly and demoralizing for a lot of people.”
“I think the reformers see this,” he said. “One of their biggest challenges going forward is how they engage the community in this reform effort.”
This holds lessons for debates over school choice and education reform elsewhere. Opponents still make claims that ignore the evidence on, say, charter school funding or vouchers’ impact on public school performance. Supporters don’t always acknowledge that the debate doesn’t stop there, that systemic inequities remain, and that changes too often happen “to, not with” the people who have been most short-changed by the school system we hope to change.
