Education Coalition Partners:

After School Partnership

Beacon of Hope

Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region

Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans

Common Good

Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana

Idea Village

New Orleans Chamber of Commerce

Young Leadership Council

Issue 7 - Public Education

In 2005, just before Katrina, only 37% of Orleans Parish schools were considered academically acceptable. Today, that number is 58% - an increase of 21 percentage points. In public education, New Orleans is one of the most improved areas in the state; its rate of progress is significantly higher than the state average. Our local officials must exercise their considerable public influence to support this positive trend, and become vocal allies in the movement to require every public school, whether charter or traditional, to be a high-performing, quality school. Further, with the money from FEMA, CDBG and insurance proceeds, the Recovery School District (RSD) and the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) should be able to provide reasonable school facilities for all children, and to provide schools with facilities that further their educational mission. Accordingly, city officials must:

Leadership Mandates

Performance Standards. Support the concept that all schools in New Orleans must be held to the same performance standards. Transfer schools that are still failing after four years, traditional or charter, to a new operating entity with a proven track record.

Charter Schools. Support and advocate for charter schools and their continued autonomy.

Support the Continued Oversight by the Recovery School District. In 2010, when the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) must vote on whether to return RSD schools to the OPSB, urge BESE to keep the schools in the RSD for another defined period of time (3-5 years) to enable community conversation and agreement regarding process, criteria and structure for when and how schools are returned. Maintain the current charter model – local control with State oversight – until there is more agreement on how to best provide local oversight.

School Facilities Support the Facilities Oversight Committee in its financial oversight role, and in its specific efforts to ensure that the facility master plan is amended to update demographic information and to prioritize spending to enable reasonable facilities for all schools.