I continue to appreciate Salon.com's coverage of the aftermath of Katrina; as a New Orleanian, I consider any news of Katrina good news.

However, I would like to encourage you to choose your colors carefully when painting with broad strokes. The situation facing the New Orleans public schools is no Milton Friedman brainchild, no insidious attempt at opening schools to market forces, vouchers, or busing programs. As is usually the case, New Orleans' triumphs and tribulations do not fit the conventional mold of grievances that are often apropos for the rest of America. Just like the 9th Ward was and will remain a poor, urban, african-american community of an utterly different kind than most isolated, fractured inner city communities of other metropolises, so too is the re-envisioning of the New Orleans Public School system a round peg for square generalizations.

The emerging plan for New Orleans' public school system has been spearheaded by the State School Superintendent Cecil Picard and Tulane University's President Scott Cowen. Picard, a man living with ALS, has pulled off a coup in wresting control of the city's schools from the school board and giving it, temporarily, to the state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The Orleans Parish School Board previously conducted not a functioning school system but an endless parade of in-fighting, public squabbles, and woeful inadequacies. My high school Benjamin Franklin was a model for diversity and with the second highest number of national merit finalists in the country, is one of the best high schools not only in New Orleans, but in the US. Of course, instead of trying to emulate the few successful models in New Orleans, the OPSB tried to mitigate Franklin's success. The same goes for the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts which, in order to maintain its excellence, requested to be transferred to the state. That the OPSB no longer control most of our city's schools is one of the brightest silver linings in the aftermath of Katrina.

Scott Cowen, as head of the Mayor's Bring New Orleans Back Commission's Education Committee, has devised a plan which, far from an unadulturated laissez-faire vision, is a plan which attempts to strike a balance between the best of the charter school with the accountability and transparency of a unified school board. The details of the plan can be found at http://dreamland.tcs.tulane.edu/~bnobced/

Lastly, Louisiana law governing the Recovery School District and charter schools has very strong language; it prohibits the use of for-profit school administrators (Edison) and provides for the direct administration of schools as if they were still under the OPSB. Which is all to say that, for the first time, there is hope for our schools. We should not be quick to quibble...

Keep up the great coverage!

All best,

Jeff

jeff,

ben franklin is not the model for orleans parish. and that's what much of the squabble on opsb has been about, whether to divert resources towards schools like franklin and lusher which are disproportionately white and wealthy, or whether to try to save the schools that are truly failing whose children are overwhelmingly black and poor.

while opsb has been largely a complete failure, it's hard to fault its president pastor torin sanders for trying to do something about the worst schools for the most at-risk kids in the city instead of focusing just on franklin and lusher. those kids are going to be fine. for most of them, their biggest issue is deciding whether they're going to get into their first choice college or if they're going to have to go to tulane as their backup. meanwhile kids in schools like frederick douglass high school have their celings falling down.

the real gutsy move to save our schools would not have been the move to the charter system. it would have been proposing a new funding model for our schools that doesn't rely on neighborhood property taxes that keeps poor kids in poor schools and rich kids in rich schools.

anyway, thanks salon and ms. goldberg for continuing to cover post-katrina new orleans. much of the city feels forgotten by the rest of the nation. what would be really great would be if you covered our criminal justice system after covering our education system. our police alone, not to mention our indigent defense and our parish prison (county jail), deserve a good look from national media.

Absolutely, more public schools need to open in New Orleans. In St. Bernard Parish, our completely devastated downriver neighbors managed to open schools before even the least-affected New Orleans neighborhoods. The Archdiocese opened most of the Catholic schools by January, and the majority of other private schools have reopened as well. That so few public schools have opened is another testament to the utter incompetence of the NOSB.

The Charter School program is a means to bring in some cash to rebuild damaged schools, while returning oversight to the principals and school families rather than the perpetually corrupt and politicized school board. Tulane is contributing $1.5 million a year to Lusher as its charter school partner. If the city managed to find 102 companies to similarly underwrite schools, maybe we'd have a school system that New Orleans could be proud of. As it is, only the most impoverished of families with no other options send their kids to public schools (unless, that is they're lucky enough to get a coveted spot at Lusher, Franklin, or one of the other magnets.)

Sadly, another characteristic of our city is a tendency to claim that anything that anyone doesn't like is racially motivated. It would be far worse for our kids to return them to schools no better or even worse than they were pre-K than to take this opportunity to fix the problem.

nola,

is it really so hard to believe that racism is alive and well in new orleans? especially in light of all that has happened politically post-katrina, people of color have good reason to be racially suspicious of policies that disproportionately harm them. the charter school movement is one such example. what happens to the kids that can't get into lusher or franklin? what do we do about special needs kids, kids with physical disabilites, mental disabilities, learning disabilites? do we simply dump them into the worst performing and most poorly funded schools? do we create educational ghettoes for them? because that's what the charter school system is risking.

i'm not anti-charter. i just think it's clear that those at the front of the line being served by charter schools are relatively white and wealthy. to charge non-magnet schools to get the kind of private money that lusher and franklin can attract is beyond ridiculous. to ignore that this line of thinking screws poor black people especially is in fact the subtle form of white liberal racism.

i don't mean that ad hominem and i don't question your intentions. i only bring out the r word because it's simply a fact that these policies hit poor blacks particularly hard while they benefit wealthier whites.